THE  UNSEEN  WORLD,  AND 
OTHER  ESSAYS 


Tls  8'  olSev  ft  rb  £fiv  jueV  fort  ttarQaveiv, 
rb  Ka.r6a.vtlv  8e  £fjv ; 

EURIPIDES 


BOSTON 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
New  York:    11    East  Seventeenth  Street 

(Stfw  fitoertffoe  pre 
1900 


Copyright,  1876, 
BY  JOHN  1'ISKB. 


Alt  rights  reserved. 


SEVENTEENTH    IMPRESSION. 


Stack 

Annex 


FMU5" 


TO 

JAMES   SIME. 

MY  DEAR  SIME  : 

Life  has  now  and  then  some  supreme  moments  of  pure  happi- 
ness, which  in  reminiscence  give  to  single  days  the  value  of  months 
or  years.  Two  or  three  such  moments  it  has  been  my  good  fortune 
to  enjoy  with  you,  in  talking  over  the  mysteries  which  forever  fas- 
cinate while  they  forever  baffle  us.  It  was  our  midnight  talks  in 
Great  Russell  Street  and  the  Addison  Road,  and  our  bright  May 
holiday  on  the  Thames,  that  led  me  to  write  this  scanty  essay  on 
the  "Unseen  World,"  and  to  whom  could  I  so  heartily  dedicate  it 
as  to  you  ?  I  only  wish  it  were  more  worthy  of  its  origin.  As  for 
the  dozen  papers  which  I  have  appended  to  it,  by  way  of  clearing 
out  my  workshop,  I  hope  you  will  read  them  indulgently,  and  be- 
lieve me 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

JOHN  FISKE. 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY,  February  3,  1876. 


2047279 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I.  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD l 

II.  "  THE  TO-MORROW  OF  DEATH  ".       ...  59 

III.  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY 66 

IV.  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA 101 

V.  A  WORD  ABOUT  MIRACLES 129 

VI.  DRAPER  ON  SCIENCE  AND  KELIGION  .        .        .  138 

VII.  NATHAN  THE  WISE 147 

VIII.  HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES 169 

IX.  THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL.       ...  190 

X.  SPAIN  AND  THE  NETHERLANDS  .        .       .       .  211 

XI.  LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE 237 

XII.  PAINE'S  "ST.  PETER" 266 

XIII.  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART  .        .        .       .       .        .  280 

XIV.  ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE               .       .  302 


INDEX  .        ,    339 


ESSAYS. 


THE  UNSEEN  WOKLD. 
PART  FIRST. 

"~VTTHAT  are  you,  where  did  you  come  from,  and 
V  V  whither  are  you  bound  ?" — the  question  which 
from  Homer's  days  has  been  put  to  the  wayfarer  in 
strange  lands  —  is  likewise  the  all-absorbing  question 
which  man  is  ever  asking  of  the  universe  of  which  he 
is  himself  so  tiny  yet  so  wondrous  a  part.  From  the 
earliest  times  the  ultimate  purpose  of  all  scientific  re- 
search has  been  to  elicit  fragmentary  or  partial  responses 
to  this  question,  and  philosophy  has  ever  busied  itself 
in  piecing  together  these  several  bits  of  information  ac- 
cording to  the  best  methods  at  its  disposal,  in  order  to 
make  up  something  like  a  satisfactory  answer.  In  old 
times  the  best  methods  which  philosophy  had  at  its 
disposal  for  this  purpose  were  such  as  now  seem  very 
crude,  and  accordingly  ancient  philosophers  bungled  con- 
siderably in  their  task,  though  now  and  then  they  came 
surprisingly  near  what  would  to-day  be  called  the  truth. 
It  was  natural  that  their  methods  should  be  crude,  for 
scientific  inquiry  had  as  yet  supplied  but  scanty  ma- 
terials for  them  to  work  with,  and  it  was  only  after  a 

1  A 


2  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

very  long  course  of  speculation  and  criticism  that  men 
could  find  out  what  ways  of  going  to  work  are  likely  to 
prove  successful  and  what  are  not.  The  earliest  think- 
ers, indeed,  were  further  hindered  from  accomplishing 
much  by  the  imperfections  of  the  language  by  the  aid 
of  which  their  thinking  was  done ;  for  science  and  phi- 
losophy have  had  to  make  a  serviceable  terminology  by 
dint  of  long  and  arduous  trial  and  practice,  and  linguistic 
processes  fit  for  expressing  general  or  abstract  notions 
accurately  grew  up  only  through  numberless  failures 
and  at  the  expense  of  much  inaccurate  thinking  and 
loose  talking.  As  in  most  of  nature's  processes,  there 
was  a  great  waste  of  energy  before  a  good  result  could 
be  secured.  Accordingly  primitive  men  were  very  wide 
of  the  mark  in  their  views  of  nature.  To  them  the 
world  was  a  sort  of  enchanted  ground,  peopled  with 
sprites  and  goblins  ;  the  quaint  notions  with  which  we 
now  amuse  our  children  in  fairy  tales  represent  a  style 
of  thinking  which  once  was  current  among  grown  men 
and  women,  and  which  is  still  current  wherever  men 
remain  in  a  savage  condition.  The  theories  of  the  world 
wrought  out  by  early  priest-philosophers  were  in  great 
part  made  up  of  such  grotesque  notions ;  and  having 
become  variously  implicated  with  ethical  opinions  as  . 
to  the  nature  and  consequences  of  right  and  wrong  be- 
haviour, they  acquired  a  kind  of  sanctity,  so  that  any 
thinker  who  in  the  light  of  a  wider  experience  ventured 
to  alter  or  amend  the  primitive  theory  was  likely  to 
be  vituperated  as  an  irreligious  man  or  atheist.  This 
sort  of  inference  has  not  yet  been  wholly  abandoned, 
even  in  civilized  communities.  Even  to-day  books  are 
written  about  "  the  conflict  between  religion  and  sci- 
ence," and  other  books  are  written  with  intent  to  recon- 
cile the  two  presumed  antagonists.  But  when  we  look 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.  3 

beneath  the  surface  of  things,  we  see  that  in  reality  there 
has  never  been  any  conflict  between  religion  and  science, 
nor  is  any  reconciliation  called  for  where  harmony  has 
always  existed.  The  real  historical  conflict,  which  has 
been  thus  curiously  misnamed,  has  been  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  more-crude  opinions  belonging  to  the  science 
of  an  earlier  age  and  the  less-crude  opinions  belonging 
to  the  science  of  a  later  age.  In  the  course  of  this  con- 
test the  more-crude  opinions  have  usually  been  defended 
in  the  name  of  religion,  and  the  less-crude  opinions  have 
invariably  won  the  victory;  but  religion  itself,  which 
is  not  concerned  with  opinion,  but  with  the  aspiration 
which  leads  us  to  strive  after  a  purer  and  holier  life,  has 
seldom  or  never  been  attacked.  On  the  contrary,  the 
scientific  men  who  have  conducted  the  battle  on  behalf 
of  the  less-crude  opinions  have  generally  been  influenced 
by  this  religious  aspiration  quite  as  strongly  as  the  apol- 
ogists of  the  more-crude  opinions,  and  so  far  from  relig- 
ious feeling  having  been  weakened  by  their  perennial 
series  of  victories,  it  has  apparently  been  growing  deeper 
and  stronger  all  the  time.  The  religious  sense  is  as  yet 
too  feebly  developed  in  most  of  us ;  but  certainly  in  no 
preceding  age  have  men  taken  up  the  work  of  life  with 
more  earnestness  or  with  more  real  faith  in  the  unseen 
than  at  the  present  day,  when  so  much  of  what  was  once 
deemed  all-important  knowledge  has  been  consigned  to 
the  limbo  of  mythology. 

The  more-crude  theories  of  early  times  are  to  be  chiefly 
distinguished  from  the  less-crude  theories  of  to-day  as 
being  largely  the  products  of  random  guesswork.  Hy- 
pothesis, or  guesswork,  indeed,  lies  at  the  foundation  of 
all  scientific  knowledge.  The  riddle  of  the  universe,  like 
less  important  riddles,  is  unravelled  only  by  approxima- 
tive trials,  and  the  most  brilliant  discoverers  have  usually 


4  TEE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 

been  the  bravest  guessers.  Kepler's  laws  were  the  re- 
sult of  indefatigable  guessing,  and  so,  in  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent sense,  was  the  wave-theory  of  light.  But  the  guess- 
work of  scientific  inquirers  is  very  different  now  from 
what  it  was  in  older  times.  In  the  first  place,  we  have 
slowly  learned  that  a  guess  must  be  verified  before  it 
can  be  accepted  as  a  sound  theory;  and,  secondly,  so 
many  truths  have  been  established  beyond  contraven- 
tion, that  the  latitude  for  hypothesis  is  much  less  than 
it  once  was.  Nine  tenths  of  the  guesses  which  might 
have  occurred  to  a  mediaeval  philosopher  would  now  be 
ruled  out  as  inadmissible,  because  they  would  not  har- 
monize with  the  knowledge  which  has  been  acquired  since 
the  Middle  Ages.  There  is  one  direction  especially  in 
which  this  continuous  limitation  of  guesswork  by  ever- 
accumulating  experience  has  manifested  itself.  From 
first  to  last,  all  our  speculative  successes  and  failures 
have  agreed  in  teaching  us  that  the  most  general  princi- 
ples of  action  which  prevail  to-day,  and  in  our  own  cor- 
ner of  the  universe,  have  always  prevailed  throughout  as 
much  of  the  universe  as  is  accessible  to  our  research. 
They  have  taught  us  that  for  the  deciphering  of  the 
past  and  the  predicting  of  the  future,  no  hypotheses  are 
admissible  which  are  not  based  upon  the  actual  behaviour 
of  things  in  the  present.  Once  there  was  unlimited 
facility  for  guessing  as  to  how  the  solar  system  might 
have  come  into  existence ;  now  the  origin  of  the  sun  and 
planets  is  adequately  explained  when  we  have  unfolded 
all  that  is  implied  in  the  processes  which  are  still  going 
on  in  the  solar  system.  Formerly  appeals  were  made  to 
all  manner  of  violent  agencies  to  account  for  the  changes 
which  the  earth's  surface  has  undergone  since  our  planet 
began  its  independent  career;  now  it  is  seen  that  the 
same  slow  working  of  rain  and  tide,  of  wind  and  wave 


THE   UNSEEN    WORLD. 


5 


and  frost,  of  secular  contraction  and  of  earthquake  pulse, 
which  is  visible  to-day,  will  account  for  the  whole. 
It  is  not  long  since  it  was  supposed  that  a  species  of 
animals  or  plants  could  be  swept  away  only  by  some 
unusual  catastrophe,  while  for  the  origination  of  new 
species  something  called  an  act  of  "  special  creation  "  was 
necessary ;  and  as  to  the  nature  of  such  extraordinary 
events  there  was  endless  room  for  guesswork ;  but  the 
discovery  of  natural  selection  was  the  discovery  of  a 
process,  going  on  perpetually  under  our  very  eyes,  which 
must  inevitably  of  itself  extinguish  some  species  and 
bring  new  ones  into  being.  In  these  and  countless  other 
ways  we  have  learned  that  all  the  rich  variety  of  nature 
is  pervaded  by  unity  of  action,  such  as  we  might  expect 
to  find  if  nature  is  the  manifestation  of  an  infinite  God 
who  is  without  variableness  or  shadow  of  turning,  but 
quite  incompatible  with  the  fitful  behaviour  of  the  an- 
thropomorphic deities  of  the  old  mythologies.  By  thus 
abstaining  from  all  appeal  to  agencies  that  are  extra-cos- 
mic, or  not  involved  in  the  orderly  system  of  events  that 
we  see  occurring  around  us,  we  have  at  last  succeeded  in 
eliminating  from  philosophic  speculation  the  character 
of  random  guesswork  which  at  first  of  necessity  belonged 
to  it.  Modern  scientific  hypothesis  is  so  far  from  being 
a  haphazard  mental  proceeding  that  it  is  perhaps  hardly 
fair  to  classify  it  with  guesses.  It  is  lifted  out  of  the 
plane  of  guesswork,  in  so  far  as  it  has  acquired  the  char- 
acter of  inevitable  inference  from  that  which  now  is  to 
that  which  has  been  or  will  be.  Instead  of  the  innumer- 
able particular  assumptions  which  were  once  admitted 
into  cosmic  philosophy,  we  are  now  reduced  to  the  one 
universal  assumption  which  has  been  variously  described 
as  the  "  principle  of  continuity,"  the  "  uniformity  of  na- 
ture," the  "  persistence  of  force,"  or  the  "  law  of  causa- 


6  THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 

tionj"  and  which  has  been  variously  explained  as  a  neces- 
sary datum  for  scientific  thinking  or  as  a  net  result  of 
all  induction.  I  am  not  unwilling,  however,  to  adopt  the 
language  of  a  book  which  has  furnished  the  occasion  for 
the  present  discussion,  and  to  say  that  this  grand  as- 
sumption is  a  supreme  act  of  faith,  the  definite  expres- 
sion of  a  trust  that  the  infinite  Sustainer  of  the  universe 
"  will  not  put  us  to  permanent  intellectual  confusion." 
For  in  this  mode  of  statement  the  harmony  between  the 
scientific  and  the  religious  points  of  view  is  well  brought 
out.  It  is  as  affording  the  only  outlet  from  permanent 
intellectual  confusion  that  inquirers  have  been  driven 
to  appeal  to  the  principle  of  continuity;  and  it  is  by 
unswerving  reliance  upon  this  principle  that  "we  have 
obtained  such  insight  into  the  past,  present,  and  future 
of  the  world  as  we  now  possess. 

The  work  just  mentioned*  is  especially  interesting 
as  an  attempt  to  bring  the  probable  destiny  of  the 
human  soul  into  connection  with  the  modern  theories 
which  explain  the  past  and  future  career  of  the  physical 
universe  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  continuity. 
Its  authorship  is  as  yet  unknown,  but  it  is  believed  to  be 
the  joint  production  of  two  of  the  most  eminent  physi- 
cists in  Great  Britain,  and  certainly  the  accurate  knowl- 
edge and  the  ingenuity  and  subtlety  of  thought  dis- 
played in  it  are  such  as  to  lend  great  probability  to  this 
conjecture.  Some  account  of  the  argument  it  contains 
may  well  precede  the  suggestions  presently  to  be  set 
forth  concerning  the  Unseen  World ;  and  we  shall  find 
it  most  convenient  to  begin,  like  our  authors,  with  a 
brief  statement  of  what  the  principle  of  continuity 

*  The  Unseen  Universe  ;  or,  Physical  Speculations  on  a  Future 
State.  [Attributed  to  Professors  TAIT  and  BALFOUR  STEWART.]  New 
York  :  Macmillan  &  Co.  1875.  8vo.  pp.212. 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.  7 

teaches  as  to  the  proximate  beginning  and  end  of  the 
visible  universe.  I  shall  in  the  main  set  down  only 
results,  having  elsewhere  *  given  a  simple  exposition  of 
the  arguments  upon  which  these  results  are  founded. 

The  first  great  cosmological  speculation  which  has 
been  raised  quite  above  the  plane  of  guesswork  by 
making  no  other  assumption  than  that  of  the  uniform- 
ity of  nature,  is  the  well-known  Nebular  Hypothesis. 
Every  astronomer  knows  that  the  earth,  like  all  other 
cosmical  bodies  which  are  flattened  at  the  poles,  was 
formerly  a  mass  of  fluid,  and  consequently  filled  a 
much  larger  space  than  at  present.  It  is  further  agreed, 
on  all  hands,  that  the  sun  is  a  contracting  body,  since 
there  is  no  other  possible  way  of  accounting  for  the 
enormous  quantity  of  heat  which  he  generates.  The 
so-called  primeval  nebula  follows  as  a  necessary  infer- 
ence from  these  facts.  There  was  once  a  time  when  the 
earth  was  distended  on  all  sides  away  out  to  the  moon 
and  beyond  it,  so  that  the  matter  now  contained  in  the 
moon  was  then  a  part  of  our  equatorial  zone.  And  at 
a  still  remoter  date  in  the  past,  the  mass  of  the  sun  was 
diffused  in  every  direction  beyond  the  orbit  of  Neptune, 
and  no  planet  had  an  individual  existence,  for  all  were 
indistinguishable  parts  of  the  solar  mass.  When  the 
great  mass  of  the  sun,  increased  by  the  relatively  small 
mass  of  all  the  planets  put  together,  was  spread  out  in 
this  way,  it  was  a  rare  vapour  or  gas.  At  the  period 
where  the  question  is  taken  up  in  Laplace's  treatment 
of  the  nebular  theory,  the  shape  of  this  mass  is  regarded 
as  spheroidal ;  but  at  an  earlier  period  its  shape  may 
well  have  been  as  irregular  as  that  of  any  of  the  nebulae 
which  we  now  see  in  distant  parts  of  the  heavens,  for, 

*  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,  based  on  the  Doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion.    Boston  :  J.  R.  Osgood  &  Co.     1875.     2  vote.     8vo. 


8  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

whatever  its  primitive  shape,  the  equalization  of  its 
rotation  would  in  time  make  it  spheroidal.  That  the 
quantity  of  rotation  was  the  same  then  as  now  is  un- 
questionable ;  for  no  system  of  particles,  great  or  small, 
can  acquire  or  lose  rotation  by  any  action  going  on 
within  itself,  any  more  than  a  man  could  pick  himself 
up  by  his  waistband  and  lift  himself  over  a  stone  wall 
So  that  the  primitive  rotating  spheroidal  solar  nebula  is 
not  a  matter  of  assumption,  but  is  just  what  must  once 
have  existed,  provided  there  has  been  no  breach  of  con- 
tinuity in  nature's  operations.  Now  proceeding  to 
reason  back  from  the  past  to  the  present,  it  has  been 
shown  that  the  abandonment  of  successive  equatorial 
belts  by  the  contracting  solar  mass  must  have  ensued 
in  accordance  with  known  mechanical  laws;  and  in 
similar  wise,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  each  belt 
must  have  parted  into  fragments,  and  the  i'ragments, 
chasing  each  other  around  the  same  orbit,  must  have  at 
last  coalesced  into  a  spheroidal  planet.  Not  only  this, 
but  it  has  also  been  shown  that  as  the  result  of  sucli  a 
process  the  relative  sizes  of  the  planets  would  be  likely 
to  take  the  order  which  they  now  follow ;  that  the  ring 
immediately  succeeding  that  of  Jupiter  would  be  likely 
to  abort  and  produce  a  great  number  of  tiny  planets 
instead  of  one  good-sized  one;  that  the  outer  planets 
would  be  likely  to  have  many  moons,  and  that  Saturn, 
besides  having  the  greatest  number  of  rnoons,  would  be 
likely  to  retain  some  of  his  inner  rings  unbroken  ;  that 
the  earth  would  be  likely  to  have  a  long  day  and  Ju- 
piter a  short  one  ;  that  the  extreme  outer  planets  would 
be  not  unlikely  to  rotate  in  a  retrograde  direction ;  and 
BO  on,  through  a  long  list  of  interesting  and  striking 
details.  Not  only,  therefore,  are  we  driven  to  the  infer- 
ence that  our  solar  system  was  once  a  vaporous  nebula, 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.  g 

but  we  find  that  the  mere  contraction  of  such  a  nebula, 
under  the  influence  of  the  enormous  mutual  gravitation 
of  its  particles,  carries  with  it  the  explanation  of  both 
the  more  general  and  the  more  particular  features  of  the 
present  system.  So  that  we  may  fairly  regard  this  stu- 
pendous process  as  veritable  matter  of  history,  while  we 
proceed  to  study  it  under  some  further  aspects  and  to 
consider  what  consequences  are  likely  to  follow. 

Our  attention  should  first  be  directed  to  the  enormous 
waste  of  energy  which  has  accompanied  this  contraction 
of  the  solar  nebula.  The  first  result  of  such  a  contrac- 
tion is  the  generation  of  a  great  quantity  of  heat,  and 
when  the  heat  thus  generated  has  been  lost  by  radi- 
ation into  surrounding  space  it  becomes  possible  for 
the  contraction  to  continue.  Thus,  as  concentration 
goes  on,  heat  is  incessantly  generated  and  incessantly 
dissipated.  How  long  this  process  is  to  endure  de- 
pends chiefly  on  the  size  of  the  contracting  mass,  as 
small  bodies  radiate  heat  much  faster  than  large  ones. 
The  moon  seems  to  be  already  thoroughly  refrigerated, 
while  Jupiter  and  Saturn  are  very  much  hotter  than 
the  earth,  as  is  shown  by  the  tremendous  atmospheric 
phenomena  which  occur  on  their  surfaces.  The  sun, 
again,  generates  heat  so  rapidly,  owing  to  his  great 
energy  of  contraction,  and  loses  it  so  slowly,  owing  to 
his  great  size,  that  his  surface  is  always  kept  in  a  state 
of  incandescence.  His  surface-temperature  is  estimated 
at  some  three  million  degrees  of  Fahrenheit,  and  a  dim- 
inution of  his  diameter  far  too  small  to  be  detected 
by  the  finest  existing  instruments  would  suffice  to  main- 
tain the  present  supply  of  heat  for  more  than  fifty  cen- 
turies. These  facts  point  to  a  very  long  future  during 
which  the  sun  will  continue  to  warm  the  earth  and  its 
companion  planets,  but  at  the  same  time  they  carry  on 
i* 


I0  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

their  face  the  story  of  inevitable  ultimate  doom.  If 
things  continue  to  go  on  as  they  have  all  along  gone  on, 
the  sun  must  by  and  by  grow  black  and  cold,  and  all 
life  whatever  throughout  the  solar  system  must  come  to 
an  end.  Long  before  this  consummation,  however,  life 
will  probably  have  become  extinct  through  the  refriger- 
ation of  each  of  the  planets  into  a  state  like  the  present 
state  of  the  moon,  in  which  the  atmosphere  and  oceans 
have  disappeared  from  the  surface.  No  doubt  the  sun 
will  continue  to  give  out  heat  a  long  time  after  heat  has 
ceased  to  be  needed  for  the  support  of  living  organisms. 
For  the  final  refrigeration  of  the  sun  will  long  be  post- 
poned by  the  fate  of  the  planets  themselves.  The  sep- 
aration of  the  planets  from  their  parent  solar  mass  seems 
to  be  after  all  but  a  temporary  separation.  So  nicely 
balanced  are  they  now  in  their  orbits  that  they  may 
well  seem  capable  of  rolling  on  in  their  present  courses 
forever.  But  this  is  not  the  case.  Two  sets  of  circum- 
stances are  all  the  while  striving,  the  one  to  drive  the 
planets  farther  away  from  the  sun,  the  other  to  draw 
them  all  into  it.  On  the  one  hand,  every  body  in  our 
system  which  contains  fluid  matter  has  tides  raised 
upon  its  surface  by  the  attraction  of  neighbouring  bodies. 
All  the  planets  raise  tides  upon  the  surface  of  the  sun, 
and  the  periodicity  of  sun-spots  (or  solar  cyclones)  de- 
pends upon  this  fact.  These  tidal  waves  act  as  a  drag 
or  brake  upon  the  rotation  of  the  sun,  somewhat  dimin- 
ishing its  rapidity.  But,  in  conformity  with  a  principle 
of  mechanics  well  known  to  astronomers,  though  not 
familiar  to  the  general  reader,  all  the  motion  of  rotation 
thus  lost  by  the  sun  is  added  to  the  planets  in  the  shape 
of  annual  motion  of  revolution,  and  thus  their  orbits  all 
tend  to  enlarge,  —  they  all  tend  to  recede  somewhat 
from  the  sun.  But  this  state  of  things,  though  Ion"-- 

o  *  o  o 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.  It 

enduring  enough,  is  after  all  only  temporary,  and  will 
at  any  rate  come  to  an  end  when  the  sun  and  planets 
have  become  solid.  Meanwhile  another  set  of  circum- 
stances is  all  the  time  tending  to  bring  the  planets 
nearer  to  the  sun,  and  in  the  long  run  must  gain  the 
mastery.  The  space  through  which  the  planets  move  is 
filled  with  a  kind  of  matter  which  serves  as  a  medium 
for  the  transmission  of  heat  and  light,  and  this  kind  of 
matter,  though  different  in  some  respects  from  ordinary 
ponderable  matter,  is  yet  like  it  in  exerting  friction. 
This  friction  is  almost  infinitely  little,  yet  it  has  a  well- 
nigh  infinite  length  of  time  to  work  in,  and  during  all 
this  wellnigh  infinite  length  of  time  it  is  slowly  eating 
up  the  momentum  of  the  planets  and  diminishing  their 
ability  to  maintain  their  distances  from  the  sun.  Hence 
in  course  of  time  the  planets  will  all  fall  into  the  sun, 
one  after  another,  so  that  the  solar  system  will  end,  as 
it  began,  by  consisting  of  a  single  mass  of  matter. 

But  this  is  by  no  means  the  end  of  the  story.  When 
two  bodies  rush  together,  each  parts  with  some  of  its  en- 
ergy of  motion,  and  this  lost  energy  of  motion  reappears 
as  heat.  In  the  concussion  of  two  cosmical  bodies,  like 
the  sun  and  the  earth,  an  enormous  quantity  of  motion 
is  thus  converted  into  heat.  Now  heat,  when  not 
allowed  to  radiate,  or  when  generated  faster  than  it  can 
be  radiated,  is  transformed  into  motion  of-  expansion. 
Hence  the  shock  of  sun  and  planet  would  at  once  result 
in  the  vaporization  of  both  bodies ;  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  by  the  time  the  sun  has  absorbed  the  outer- 
most of  his  attendant  planets,  he  will  have  resumed 
something  like  his  original  nebulous  condition.  He  will 
have  been  dilated  into  a  huge  mass  of  vapour,  and  will 
have  become  fit  for  a  new  process  of  contraction  and  for 
a  £e,w  production  of  life-bearing  planets. 


12  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

We  are  now,  however,  confronted  by  an  interesting 
but  difficult  question.  Throughout  all  this  grand  past 
and  future  career  of  the  solar  system  which  we  have 
just  briefly  traced,  we  have  been  witnessing  a  most 
prodigal  dissipation  of  energy  in  the  shape  of  radiant 
heat.  At  the  outset  we  had  an  enormous  quantity  of 
what  is  called  "  energy  of  position,"  that  is,  the  outer 
parts  of  our  primitive  nebula  had  a  very  long  distance 
through  which  to  travel  towards  one  another  in  the 
slow  process  of  concentration;  and  this  distance  was 
the  measure  of  the  quantity  of  work  possible  to  our 
system.  As  the  particles  of  our  nebula  drew  nearer 
and  nearer  together,  the  energy  of  position  continually 
lost  reappeared  continually  as  heat,  of  which  the  greater 
part  was  radiated  off,  but  of  which  a  certain  amount  was 
retained.  All  the  gigantic  amount  of  work  achieved  in 
the  geologic  development  of  our  earth  and  its  companion 
planets,  and  in  the  development  of  life  wherever  life 
may  exist  in  our  system,  has  been  the  product  of  this 
retained  heat.  At  the  present  day  the  same  wasteful 
process  is  going  on.  Each  moment  the  sun's  particles 
are  losing  energy  of  position  as  they  draw  closer  and 
closer  together,  and  the  heat  into  which  this  lost  energy 
is  metamorphosed  is  poured  out  most  prodigally  in 
every  direction.  Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  how 
little  of  it  gets  used  in  our  system.  The  earth's  orbit 
is  a  nearly  circular  figure  more  than  five  hundred  mil- 
lion miles  in  circumference,  while  only  eight  thousand 
miles  of  this  path  are  at  any  one  time  occupied  by  the 
earth's  mass.  Through  these  eight  thousand  miles  the 
sun's  radiated  energy  is  doing  work,  but  through  the 
remainder  of  the  five  hundred  million  it  is  idle  and 
wasted.  But  the  case  is  far  more  striking  when  we 
reflect  that  it  is  not  in  the  plane  of  the  earth's  orbit 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD.  !3 

only  that  the  sun's  radiance  is  being  poured  out.  It 
is  not  an  affair  of  a  circle,  but  of  a  sphere.  In  order  to 
utilize  all  the  solar  rays,  we  should  need  to  have  an 
immense  number  of  earths  arranged  so  as  to  touch  each 
other,  forming  a  hollow  sphere  around  the  sun,  with 
the  present  radius  of  the  earth's  orbit.  "We  may  well 
believe  Professor  Tyndall,  therefore,  when  he  tells  us 
that  all  the  solar  radiance  we  receive  is  less  than  a  two- 
billionth  part  of  what  is  sent  flying  through  the  desert 
regions  of  space.  Some  of  the  immense  residue  of 
course  hits  other  planets  stationed  in  the  way  of  it,  and 
is  utilized  upon  their  surfaces ;  but  the  planets,  all  put 
together,  stop  so  little  of  the  total  quantity  that  our 
startling  illustration  is  not  materially  altered  by  taking 
them  into  the  account.  Now  this  two-billionth  part  of 
the  solar  radiance  poured  out  from  moment  to  moment 
suffices  to  blow  every  wind,  to  raise  every  cloud,  to 
drive  every  engine,  to  build  up  the  tissue  of  every 
plant,  to  sustain  the  activity  of  every  animal,  including 
man,  upon  the  surface  of  our  vast  and  stately  globe. 
Considering  the  wondrous  richness  and  variety  of  the 
terrestrial  life  wrought  out  by  the  few  sunbeams  which 
we  catch  in  our  career  through  space,  we  may  well 
pause  overwhelmed  and  stupefied  at  the  thought  of  the 
incalculable  possibilities  of  existence  which  are  thrown 
away  with  the  potent  actinism  that  darts  unceasingly 
into  the  unfathomed  abysms  of  immensity.  Where  it 
goes  to  or  what  becomes  of  it,  no  one  of  us  can  surmise. 
Now  when,  in  the  remote  future,  our  sun  is  reduced 
to  vapour  by  the  impact  of  the  several  planets  upon  his 
surface,  the  resulting  nebulous  mass  must  be  a  very 
insignificant  affair  compared  with  the  nebulous  mass 
with  which  we  started.  In  order  to  make  a  second 
nebula  equal  in  size  and  potential  energy  to  the  first 


!4  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

one,  all  the  energy  of  position  at  first  existing  should 
have  been  retained  in  some  form  or  other.  But  nearly 
all  of  it  has  been  lost,  and  only  an  insignificant  fraction 
remains  with  which  to  endow  a  new  system.  In  order 
to  reproduce,  in  future  ages,  anything  like  that  cos- 
mical  development  which  is  now  going  on  in  the  solar 
system,  aid  must  be  sought  from  without.  We  must 
endeavour  to  frame  some  valid  hypothesis  as  to  the 
relation  of  our  solar  system  to  other  systems. 

Thus  far  our  view  has  been  confined  to  the  career  of 
a  single  star,  —  our  sun,  —  with  the  tiny,  easily-cooling 
balls  which  it  has  cast  off  in  the  course  of  its  develop- 
ment. Thus  far,  too,  our  inferences  have  been  very 
secure,  for  we  have  been  dealing  with  a  circumscribed 
group  of  phenomena,  the  beginning  and  end  of  which 
have  been  brought  pretty  well  within  the  compass  of 
our  imagination.  It  is  quite  another  thing  to  deal  with 
the  actual  or  probable  career  of  the  stars  in  general, 
inasmuch  as  we  do  not  even  know  how  many  stars  there 
are,  which  form  parts  of  a  common  system,  or  what  are 
their  precise  dynamic  relations  to  one  another.  Never- 
theless we  have  knowledge  of  a  few  facts  which  may 
support  some  cautious  inferences.  All  the  stars  which 
we  can  see  are  undoubtedly  bound  together  by  relations 
of  gravitation.  No  doubt  our  sun  attracts  all  the  other 
stars  within  our  ken,  and  is  reciprocally  attracted  by 
them.  The  stars,  too,  lie  mostly  in  or  around  one  great 
plane,  as  is  the  case  with  the  members  of  the  solar  sys- 
tem. Moreover,  the  stars  are  shown  by  the  spectroscope 
to  consist  of  chemical  elements  identical  with  those 
which  are  found  in  the  solar  system.  Such  facts  as 
these  make  it  probable  that  the  career  of  other  stars, 
when  adequately  inquired  into,  would  be  found  to 
be  like  that  of  our  own  sun.  Observation  daily  en- 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.  i$ 

hances  this  probability,  for  our  study  of  the  sidereal 
universe  is  continually  showing  us  stars  in  all  stages 
of  development.  We  find  irregular  nebulae,  for  ex- 
ample ;  we  find  spiral  and  spheroidal  nebulae ;  we  find 
stars  which  have  got  beyond  the  nebulous  stage,  but 
are  still  at  a  whiter  heat  than  our  sun ;  and  we  also 
find  many  stars  which  yield  the  same  sort  of  spectrum 
as  our  sun.  The  inference  seems  forced  upon  us  that 
the  same  process  of  concentration  which  has  gone  on  in 
the  case  of  our  solar  nebula  has  been  going  on  in  the 
case  of  other  nebulae.  The  history  of  the  sun  is  but 
a  type  of  the  history  of  stars  in  general.  And  when 
we  consider  that  all  other  visible  stars  and  nebulae  are 
cooling  and  contracting  bodies,  like  our  sun,  to  what 
other  conclusion  could  we  very  well  come  ?  When  we 
look  at  Sirius,  for  instance,  we  do  not  see  him  sur- 
rounded by  planets,  for  at  such  a  distance  no  planet 
could  be  visible,  even  Sirius  himself,  though  fourteen 
times  larger  than  our  sun,  appearing  only  as  a  "  twink- 
ling little  star."  But  a  comparative  survey  of  the  heav- 
ens assures  us  that  Sirius  can  hardly  have  arrived  at 
his  present  stage  of  concentration  without  detaching 
planet-forming  rings,  for  there  is  no  reason  for  suppos- 
ing that  mechanical  laws  out  there  are  at  all  different 
from  what  they  are  in  our  own  system.  And  the  same 
kind  of  inference  must  apply  to  all  the  matured  stars 
which  we  see  in  the  heavens. 

When  we  duly  take  all  these  things  into  the  account, 
the  case  of  our  solar  system  will  appear  as  only  one  of  a 
thousand  cases  of  evolution  and  dissolution  with  which 
the  heavens  furnish  us.  Other  stars,  like  our  sun,  have 
undoubtedly  started  as  vaporous  masses,  and  have  thrown 
off  planets  in  contracting.  The  inference  may  seem  a 
bold  one,  but  it  after  all  involves  no  other  assumption 


!6  THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 

than  that  of  the  continuity  of  natural  phenomena.  It  is 
not  likely,  therefore,  that  the  solar  system  will  forever 
be  left  to  itself.  Stars  which  strongly  gravitate  toward 
each  other,  while  moving  through  a  perennially  resisting 
medium,  must  in  time  be  drawn  together.  The  collision 
of  our  extinct  sun  with  one  of  the  Pleiades,  after  this 
manner,  would  very  likely  suffice  to  generate  even  a 
grander  nebula  than  the  one  with  which  we  started. 
Possibly  the  entire  galactic  system  may,  in  an  incon- 
ceivably remote  future,  remodel  itself  in  this  way  ;  and 
possibly  the  nebula  from  which  our  own  group  of  plan- 
ets has  been  formed  may  have  owed  its  origin  to  the 
disintegration  of  systems  which  had  accomplished  their 
career  in  the  depths  of  the  bygone  eternity. 

When  the  problem  is  extended  to  these  huge  dimen- 
sions, the  prospect  of  an  ultimate  cessation  of  cosmical 
work  is  indefinitely  postponed,  but  at  the  same  time  it 
becomes  impossible  for  us  to  deal  very  securely  with  the 
questions  we  have  raised.  The  magnitudes  and  periods 
we  have  introduced  are  so  nearly  infinite  as  to  baffle 
speculation  itself.  One  point,  however,  we  seem  dimly 
to  discern.  Supposing  the  stellar  universe  not  to  be  ab- 
solutely infinite  in  extent,  we  may  hold  that  the  day  of 
doom,  so  often  postponed,  must  come  at  last.  The  con- 
centration of  matter  and  dissipation  of  energy,  so  often 
checked,  must  in  the  end  prevail,  so  that,  as  the  final 
outcome  of  things,  the  entire  universe  will  be  reduced  to 
a  single  enormous  ball,  dead  and  frozen,  solid  and  black, 
its  potential  energy  of  motion  having  been  all  trans- 
formed into  heat  and  radiated  away.  Such  a  conclusion 
has  been  suggested  by  Sir  William  Thomson,  and  it  is 
quite  forcibly  stated  by  the  authors  of  "  The  Unseen 
Universe."  They  remind  us  that  "  if  there  be  any  one 
form  of  energy  less  readily  or  less  completely  transform- 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD.  i»j 

able  than  the  others,  and  if  transformations  constantly 
go  on,  more  and  more  of  the  whole  energy  of  the  uni- 
verse will  inevitably  sink  into  this  lower  grade  as  time 
advances."  Now  radiant  heat,  as  we  have  seen,  is  such 
a  lower  grade  of  energy.  "  At  each  transformation  of 
heat-energy  into  work,  a  large  portion  is  degraded,  while 
only  a  small  portion  is  transformed  into  work.  So  that 
while  it  is  very  easy  to  change  all  of  our  mechanical  or 
useful  energy  into  heat,  it  is  only  possible  to  transform 
a  portion  of  this  heat-energy  back  again  into  work. 
After  each  change,  too,  the  heat  becomes  more  and  more 
dissipated  or  degraded,  and  less  and  less  available  for 
any  future  transformation.  In  other  words,"  our  authors 
continue,  "  the  tendency  of  heat  is  towards  equalization ; 
heat  is  par  excellence  the  communist  of  our  universe,  and 
it  will  no  doubt  ultimately  bring  the  system  to  an  end. 
....  It  is  absolutely  certain  that  life,  so  far  as  it  is 
physical,  depends  essentially  upon  transformations  of 
energy ;  it  is  also  absolutely  certain  that  age  after  age 
the  possibility  of  such  transformations  is  becoming  less 
and  less ;  and,  so  far  as  we  yet  know,  the  final  state  of 
the  present  universe  must  be  an  aggregation  (into  one 
mass)  of  all  the  matter  it  contains,  i.  e.  the  potential 
energy  gone,  and  a  practically  useless  state  of  kinetic 
energy,  i.  e.  uniform  temperature  throughout  that  mass." 
Thus  our  authors  conclude  that  the  visible  universe 
began  in  time  and  will  in  time  come  to  an  end ;  and 
they  add  that  under  the  physical  conditions  of  such  a 
universe  "  immortality  is  impossible."  ' 

Concerning  the  latter  inference  we  shall  by  and  by 
have  something  to  say.     Meanwhile  this  whole  specula- 
tion as  to  the  final  cessation  of  cosmical  work  seems  to 
me  —  as  it  does  to  my  friend,  Professor  Clifford  *  —  by 
*  Fortnightly  Review,  April,  1875.    . 


IS  THE   UNSEEN   WORLD. 

no  means  trustworthy.  The  conditions  of  the  problem 
so  far  transcend  our  grasp  that  any  such  speculation 
must  remain  an  un verifiable  guess.  I  do  not  go  with 
Professor  Clifford  in  doubting  whether  the  laws  of  me- 
chanics are  absolutely  the  same  throughout  eternity ;  I 
cannot  quite  reconcile  such  a  doubt  with  faith  in  the 
principle  of  continuity.  But  it  does  seem  to  me  needful, 
before  we  conclude  that  radiated  energy  is  absolutely 
and  forever  wasted,  that  we  should  find  out  what  be- 
comes of  it.  What  we  call  radiant  heat  is  simply  trans- 
verse wave-motion,  propagated  with  enormous  velocity 
through  an  ocean  of  subtle  ethereal  matter  which  bathes 
the  atoms  of  all  visible  or  palpable  bodies  and  fills  the 
whole  of  space,  extending  beyond  the  remotest  star 
which  the  telescope  can  reach.  Whether  there  are  any 
bounds  at  all  to  this  ethereal  ocean,  or  whether  it  is  as 
infinite  as  space  itself,  we  cannot  surmise.  If  it  be  lim- 
ited, the  possible  dispersion  of  radiant  energy  is  limited 
by  its  extent.  Heat  and  light  cannot  travel  through 
emptiness.  If  the  ether  is  bounded  by  surrounding 
emptiness,  then  a  ray  of  heat,  on  arriving  at  this  limit- 
ing emptiness,  would  be  reflected  back  as  surely  as  a  ball 
is  sent  back  when  thrown  against  a  solid  wall  If  this 
be  the  case,  it  will  not  affect  our  conclusions  concerning 
such  a  tiny  region  of  space  as  is  occupied  by  the  solar 
system,  but  it  will  seriously  modify  Sir  William  Thom- 
son's suggestion  as  to  the  fate  of  the  universe  as  a  whole. 
The  radiance  thrown  away  by  the  sun  is  indeed  lost  so 
far  as  the  future  of  our  system  is  concerned,  but  not  a 
single  unit  of  it  is  lost  from  the  universe.  Sooner  or 
later,  reflected  back  in  all  directions,  it  must  do  work  in 
one  quarter  or  another,  so  that  ultimate  stagnation  be- 
comes impossible.  It  is  true  that  no  such  return  of 
radiant  energy  has  been  detected  in  our  corner  of  the 


THE   UNSEEN  WOULD.  ig 

world ;  but  we  have  not  yet  so  far  disentangled  all  the 
force-relations  of  the  universe  that  we  are  entitled  to 
regard  such  a  return  as  impossible.  This  is  one  way 
of  escape  from  the  consummation  of  things  depicted  by 
our  authors.  Another  way  of  escape  is  equally  available, 
if  we  suppose  that  while  the  ether  is  without  bounds  the 
stellar  universe  also  extends  to  infinity.  For  in  this  case 
the  reproduction  of  nebulous  masses  fit  for  generating 
new  systems  of  worlds  must  go  on  through  space  that  is 
endless,  and  consequently  the  process  can  never  come  to 
an  end  and  can  never  have  had  a  beginning.  We  have, 
therefore,  three  alternatives :  either  the  visible  universe 
is  finite,  while  the  ether  is  infinite ;  or  both  are  finite  ; 
or  ^o_th^.axa_infinite.  Only  on  the  first  supposition,  I 
think,  do  we  get  a  universe  which  began  in  time  and 
must  end  in  time.  Between  such  stupendous  alterna- 
tives we  have  no  grounds  for  choosing.  But  it  would 
seem  that  the  third,  whether  strictly  true  or  not,  best 
represents  the  state  of  the  case  relatively  to  our  feeble 
capacity  of  comprehension.  Whether  absolutely  infinite 
or  not,  the  dimensions  of  the  universe  must  be  taken  as 
practically  infinite,  so  far  as  human  thought  is  con- 
cerned. They  immeasurably  transcend  the  capabilities 
of  any  gauge  we  can  bring  to  bear  on  them.  Accord- 
ingly all  that  we  are  really  entitled  to  hold,  as  the  out' 
come  of  sound  speculation,  is  the  conception  of  innumer- 
able systems  of  worlds  concentrating  out  of  nebulous 
masses,  and  then  rushing  together  and  dissolving  into 
similar  masses,  as  bubbles  unite  and  break  up  —  now 
here,  now  there  —  in  their  play  on  the  surface  of  a  pool, 
and  to  this  tremendous  series  of  events  we  can  assign 
neither  a  beginning  nor  an  end. 

We  must  now  make  some  more  explicit  mention  of 
the  ether  which  carries  through  space  the  rays  of  heat 


2Q  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

and  light.  In  closest  connection  with  the  visible  stellar 
universe,  the  vicissitudes  of  which  we  have  briefly  traced, 
the  all-pervading  ether  constitutes  a  sort  of  unseen  world 
remarkable  enough  from  any  point  of  view,  but  to  which 
the  theory  of  our  authors  ascribes  capacities  hitherto  un- 
suspected by  science.  The  very  existence  of  an  ocean 
of  ether  enveloping  the  molecules  of  material  bodies  has 
been  doubted  or  denied  by  many  eminent  physicists, 
though  of  course  none  have  called  in  question  the  neces- 
sity for  some  interstellar  medium  for  the  transmission  of 
thermal  and  luminous  vibrations.  This  scepticism  has 
been,  I  think,  partially  justified  by  the  many  difficulties 
encompassing  the  conception,  into  which,  however,  we 
need  not  here  enter.  That  light  and  heat  cannot  be  con- 
veyed by  any  of  the  ordinary  sensible  forms  of  matter  is 
unquestionable.  None  of  the  forms  of  sensible  matter 
can  be  imagined  sufficiently  elastic  to  propagate  wave- 
motion  at  the  rate  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-eight 
thousand  miles  per  second.  Yet  a  ray  of  light  is  a 
series  of  waves,  and  implies  some  substance  in  which 
the  waves  occur.  The  substance  required  is  one  which 
seems  to  possess  strangely  contradictory  properties.  It 
is  commonly  regarded  as  an  "ether"  or  infinitely  rare 
substance ;  but,  as  Professor  Jevons  observes,  we  might 
as  well  regard  it  as  an  infinitely  solid  "  adamant."  "  Sir 
John  Herschel  has  calculated  the  amount  of  force 
which  may  be  supposed,  according  to  the  undulatory 
theory  of  light,  to  be  exerted  at  each  point  in  space,  and 
finds  it  to  be  1,148,000,000,000  times  the  elastic  force 
of  ordinary  air  at  the  earth's  surface,  so  that  the  pressure 
of  the  ether  upon  a  square  inch  of  surface  must  be  about 
17,000,000,000,000,  or  seventeen  billions  of  pounds."  * 

*  Jevons's  Principles  of  Science,  Vol.  IT.  p.  145.  The  figures,  which 
in  the  English  system  of  numeration  read  as  seventeen  billions,  would 
in  the  American  system  read  as  seventeen  trillions. 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.  21 

Yet  at  the  same  time  the  resistance  offered  by  the  ether 
to  the  planetary  motions  is  too  minute  to  be  apprecia- 
ble. "  All  our  ordinary  notions,"  says  Professor  Jevons, 
"  must  be  laid  aside  in  contemplating  such  an  hypoth- 
esis ;  yet  [it  is]  no  more  than  the  observed  phenom- 
ena of  light  and  heat  force  us  to  accept.  We  cannot 
deny  even  the  strange  suggestion  of  Dr.  Young,  that 
there  may  be  independent  worlds,  some  possibly  exist- 
ing in  different  parts  of  space,  but  others  perhaps  per- 
vading each  other,  unseen  and  unknown,  in  the  same 
space.  For  if  we  are  bound  to  admit  the  conception  of 
this  adamantine  firmament,  it  is  equally  easy  to  admit  a 
plurality  of  such." 

The  ether,  therefore,  is  unlike  any  of  the  forms  of  mat- 
ter which  we  can  weigh  and  measure.  In  some  respects 
it  resembles  a  fluid,  in  some  respects  a  solid.  It  is  both 
hard  and  elastic  to  an  almost  inconceivable  degree.  It 
fills  all  material  bodies  like  a  sea  in  which  the  atoms  of 
the  material  bodies  are  as  islands,  and  it  occupies  the 
whole  of  what  we  call  empty  space.  It  is  so  sensitive 
that  a  disturbance  in  any  part  of  it  causes  a  "  tremour 
which  is  felt  on  the  surface  of  countless  worlds."  Our 
old  experiences  of  matter  give  us  no  account  of  any 
substance  like  this ;  yet  the  undulatory  theory  of  light 
obliges  us  to  admit  such  a  substance,  and  that  theory  is 
as  well  established  as  the  theory  of  gravitation.  Obvi- 
ously we  have  here  an  enlargement  of  our  experience  of 
matter.  The  analysis  of  the  phenomena  of  light  and 
radiant  heat  has  brought  us  into  mental  relations  with 
matter  in  a  different  state  from  any  in  which  we  previ- 
ously knew  it.  For  the  supposition  that  the  ether  may 
be  something  essentially  different  from  matter  is  contra- 
dicted by  all  the  terms  we  have  used  in  describing  it. 
Strange  and  contradictory  as  its  properties  may  seem, 


22  TH-E  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

are  they  any  more  strange  than  the  properties  of  a  gas 
would  seem  if  we  were  for  the  first  time  to  discover 
a  gas  after  heretofore  knowing  nothing  but  solids  and 
liquids  ?  I  think  not ;  and  the  conclusion  implied  by 
our  authors  seems  to  me  eminently  probable,  that  in  the 
so-called  ether  we  have  simply  a  state  of  matter  more 
primitive  than  what  we  know  as  the  gaseous  state.  In- 
deed, the  conceptions  of  matter  now  current,  and  inher- 
ited from  barbarous  ages,  are  likely  enough  to  be  crude 
in  the  extreme.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  study  of  such 
subtle  agencies  as  heat  and  light  should  oblige  us  to 
modify  them ;  and  it  will  not  be  strange  if  the  study 
of  electricity  should  entail  still  further  revision  of  our 
ideas."^"" 

We  are  now  brought  to  one  of  the  profoundest  spec- 
ulations of  modern  times,  the  vortex-atom  theory  of 
Helmholtz  and  Thomson,  in  which  the  evolution  of 
ordinary  matter  from  ether  is  plainly  indicated.  The 
reader  first  needs  to  know  what  vortex-motion  is ;  and 
this  has  been  so  beautifully  explained  by  Professor 
Clifford,  that  I  quote  his  description  entire :  "  Imagine 
a  ring  of  india-rubber,  made  by  joining  together  the 
ends  of  a  cylindrical  piece  (like  a  lead-pencil  before 
it  is  cut),  to  be  put  upon  a  round  stick  which  it  will 
just  fit  with  a  little  stretching.  Let  the  stick  be  now 
pulled  through  the  ring  while  the  latter  is  kept  in  its 
place  by  being  pulled  the  other  way  on  the  outside. 
The  india-rubber  has  then  what  is  called  vortex-motion. 
Before  the  ends  were  joined  together,  while  it  was 
straight,  it  might  have  been  made  to  turn  around  with- 
out changing  position,  by  rolling  it  between  the  hands. 
Just  the  same  motion  of  rotation  it  has  on  the  stick, 
only  that  the  ends  are  now  joined  together.  All  the  in- 
side surface  of  the  ring  is  going  one  way,  namely,  the 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD.  23 

way  the  stick  is  pulled;  and  all  the  outside  is  going 
the  other  way.  Such  a  vortex-ring  is  made  by  the 
smoker  who  purses  his  lips  into  a  round  hole  and  sends 
out  a  puff  of  smoke.  The  outside  of  the  ring  is  kept 
back  by  the  friction  of  his  lips  while  the  inside  is  going 
forwards ;  thus  a  rotation  is  set  up  all  round  the  smoke- 
ring  as  it  travels  out  into  the  air."  In  these  cases,  and 
in  others  as  we  commonly  find  it,  vortex-motion  owes 
its  origin  to  friction  and  is  after  a  while  brought  to  an 
end  by  friction.  But  in  1858  the  equations  of  motion 
of  an  incompressible  frictionless  fluid  were  first  success- 
fully solved  by  Helmholtz,  and  among  other  things  he 
proved  that,  though  vortex-motion  could  not  be  origi- 
nated in  such  a  fluid,  yet  supposing  it  once  to  exist,  it 
would  exist  to  all  eternity  and  could  not  be  diminished 
by  any  mechanical  action  whatever.  A  vortex-ring,  for 
example,  in  such  a  fluid,  would  forever  preserve  its  own 
rotation,  and  would  thus  forever  retain  its  peculiar  indi- 
viduality, being,  as  it  were,  marked  off  from  its  neigh- 
bour vortex-rings.  Upon  this  mechanical  truth  Sir  Wil- 
liam Thomson  based  his  wonderfully  suggestive  theory 
of  the  constitution  of  matter.  That  which  is  permanent 
or  indestructible  in  matter  is  the  ultimate  homogeneous 
atom ;  and  this  is  probably  all  that  is  permanent,  since 
chemists  now  almost  unanimously  hold  that  so-called 
elementary  molecules  are  not  really  simple,  but  owe 
their  sensible  differences  to  the  various  groupings  of  an 
ultimate  atom  which  is  alike  for  all.  Eelatively  to  our 
powers  of  comprehension  the  atom  endures  eternally; 
that  is,  it  retains  forever  unalterable  its  definite  mass 
and  its  definite  rate  of  vibration.  Now  this  is  just 
what  a  vortex-ring  would  do  in  an  incompressible  fric- 
tionless fluid.  Thus  the  startling  question  is  suggested, 
Why  may  not  the  ultimate  atoms  of  matter  be  vortex- 


24  'THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

rings  forever  existing  in  such  a  frictionless  fluid  filling 
the  whole  of  space  ?  Such  a  hypothesis  is  not  less 
brilliant  than  Huyghens's  conjectural  identification  of 
light  with  undulatory  motion ;  and  it  is  moreover  a 
legitimate  hypothesis,  since  it  can  be  brought  to  the  test 
of  verification.  Sir  William  Thomson  has  shown  that 
it  explains  a  great  many  of  the  physical  properties  of 
matter:  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  it  can  explain 
them  all. 

Of  course  the  ether  which  conveys  thermal  and  lumi- 
nous undulations  is  not  the  frictionless  fluid  postulated 
by  Sir  William  Thomson.  The  most  conspicuous  prop- 
erty of  the  ether  is  its  enormous  elasticity,  a  property 
which  we  should  not  find  in  a  frictionless  fluid.  "  To 
account  for  such  elasticity,"  says  Professor  Clifford 
(whose  exposition  of  the  subject  is  still  more  lucid  than 
that  of  our  authors),  "  it  has  to  be  supposed  that  even 
where  there  are  no  material  molecules  the  universal 
fluid  is  full  of  vortex-motion,  but  that  the  vortices  are 
smaller  and  more  closely  packed  than  those  of  [ordi- 
nary] matter,  forming  altogether  a  more  finely  grained 
structure.  So  that  the  difference  between  matter  and 
ether  is  reduced  to  a  mere  difference  in  the  size  and 
arrangement  of  the  component  vortex-rings.  Now, 
whatever  may  turn  out  to  be  the  ultimate  nature  of  the 
ether  and  of  molecules,  we  know  that  to  some  extent  at 
least  they  obey  the  same  dynamic  laws,  and  that  they 
act  upon  one  another  in  accordance  with  these  laws. 
Until,  therefore,  it  is  absolutely  disproved,  it  must 
remain  the  simplest  and  most  probable  assumption 
that  they  are  finally  made  of  the  same  stuff,  that  the 
material  molecule  is  some  kind  of  knot  or  coagulation 
of  ether."  * 

*  Fortnightly  Review,  June,  1875,  p.  784. 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD.  2$ 

Another  interesting  consequence  of  Sir  William 
Thomson's  pregnant  hypothesis  is  that  the  absolute 
hardness  which  has  been  attributed  to  material  atoms 
from  the  time  of  Lucretius  downward  may  be  dispensed 
with.  Somewhat  in  the  same  way  that  a  loosely  sus- 
pended chain  becomes  rigid  with  rapid  rotation,  the 
hardness  and  elasticity  of  the  vortex-atom  are  explained 
as  due  to  the  swift  rotary  motion  of  a  soft  and  yielding 
fluid.  So  that  the  vortex-atom  is  really  indivisible,  not 
by  reason  of  its  hardness  or  solidity,  but  by  reason  of 
the  indestructibleness  of  its  motion. 

Supposing,  now,  that  we  adopt  provisionally  the  vor- 
tex theory,  —  the  great  power  of  which  is  well  shown 
by  the  consideration  just  mentioned,  —  we  must  not 
forget  that  it  is  absolutely  essential  to  the  indestructi- 
bleness of  the  material  atom  that  the  universal  fluid 
in  which  it  has  an  existence  as  a  vortex-ring  should  be 
entirely  destitute  of  friction.  Once  admit  even  the 
most  infinitesimal  amount  of  friction,  while  retaining 
the  conception  of  vortex-motion  in  a  universal  fluid, 
and  the  whole  case  is  so  far  altered  that  the  material 
atom  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  absolutely  indestruc- 
tible, but  only  as  indefinitely  enduring.  It  may  have 
been  generated,  in  bygone  eternity,  by  a  natural  pro- 
cess of  evolution,  and  in  future  eternity  may  come  to 
an  end.  Eelatively  to  our  powers  of  comprehension 
the  practical  difference  is  perhaps  not  great.  Scien- 
tifically speaking,  Helmholtz  and  Thomson  are  as  well 
entitled  to  reason  upon  the  assumption  of  a  perfectly 
frictionless  fluid  as  geometers  in  general  are  entitled 
to  assume  perfect  lines  without  breadth  and  perfect 
surfaces  without  thickness.  Perfect  lines  and  surfaces 
do  not  exist  within  the  region  of  our  experience ;  yet 
the  conclusions  of  geometry  are  none  the  less  true 
2 


26  THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 

ideally,  though  in  any  particular  concrete  instance 
they  are  only  approximately  realized.  Just  so  with  the 
conception  of  a  frictionless  fluid.  So  far  as  experience 
goes,  such  a  thing  has  no  more  real  existence  than  a 
line  without  breadth ;  and  hence  an  atomic  theory  based 
upon  such  an  assumption  may  be  as  true  ideally  as  any 
of  the  theorems  of  Euclid,  but  it  can  give  4only  an 
approximatively  true  account  of  the  actual  universe. 
These  considerations  do  not  at  all  affect  the  scientific 
value  of  the  theory ;  but  they  will  modify  the  tenour  of 
such  transcendental  inferences  as  may  be  drawn  from  it 
regarding  the  probable  origin  and  destiny  of  the  universe. 
The  conclusions  reached  in  the  first  part  of  this  paper, 
while  we  were  dealing  only  with  gross  visible  matter, 
may  have  seemed  bold  enough;  but  they  are  far  sur- 
passed by  the  inference  which  our  authors  draw  from 
the  vortex  theory  as  they  interpret  it.  Our  authors  ex- 
hibit various  reasons,  more  or  less  sound,  for  attributing 
to  the  primordial  fluid  some  slight  amount  of  friction ; 
and  in  support  of  this  view  they  adduce  Le  Sage's 
explanation  of  gravitation  as  a  differential  result  of 
pressure,  and  Struve's  theory  of  the  partial  absorption 
of  light-rays  by  the  ether,  —  questions  with  which  our 
present  purpose  does  not  require  us  to  meddle.  Apart 
from  such  questions  it  is  every  way  probable  that  the 
primary  assumption  of  Helmholtz  and  Thomson  is  only 
an  approximation  to  the  truth.  But  if  we  accredit  the 
primordial  fluid  with  even  an  infinitesimal  amount  of 
friction,  then  we  are  required  to  conceive  of  the  visible 
universe  as  developed  from  the  invisible  and  as  destined 
to  return  into  the  invisible.  The  vortex-atom,  produced 
by  infinitesimal  friction  operating  through  wellnigh  in- 
finite time,  is  to  be  ultimately  abolished  by  the  agency 
which  produced  it.  In  the  words  of  our  authors,  "  If 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.  2? 

the  visible  universe  be  developed  from  an  invisible 
which  is  not  a  perfect  fluid,  then  the  argument  deduced 
by  Sir  William  Thomson  in  favour  of  the  eternity  of 
ordinary  matter  disappears,  since  this  eternity  depends 
upon  the  perfect  fluidity  of  the  invisible.  In  fine,  if 
we  suppose  the  material  universe  to  be  composed  of  a 
series  of  .vortex-rings  developed  from  an  invisible  uni- 
verse which  is  not  a  perfect  fluid,  it  will  be  ephemeral, 
just  as  the  smoke-ring  which  we  develop  from  air,  or 
that  which  we  develop  from  water,  is  ephemeral,  the  only 
difference  being  in  duration,  these  lasting  only  for  a  few 
seconds,  and  the  others  it  may  be  for  billions  of  years." 
Thus,  as  our  authors  suppose  that  "  the  available  energy 
of  the  visible  universe  will  ultimately  be  appropriated 
by  the  invisible,"  they  go  on  to  imagine,  "  at  least  as  a 
possibility,  that  the  separate  existence  of  the  visible 
universe  will  share  the  same  fate,  so  that  we  shall  have 
no  huge,  useless,  inert  mass  existing  in  after  ages  to  re- 
mind the  passer-by  of  a  form  of  energy  and  a  species  of 
matter  that  is  long  since  out  of  date  and  functionally 
effete.  Why  should  not  the  universe  bury  its  dead  out 
of  sight  ? " 

In  one  respect  perhaps  no  more  stupendous  subject 
of  contemplation  than  this  has  ever  been  offered  to  the 
mind  of  man.  In  comparison  with  the  length  of  time 
thus  required  to  efface  the  tiny  individual  -atom,  the 
entire  cosmical  career  of  our  solar  system,  or  even  that 
of  the  whole  starry  galaxy,  shrinks  into  utter  nothing- 
ness. Whether  we  shall  adopt  the  conclusion  suggested 
must  depend  on  the  extent  of  our  speculative  audacity. 
We  have  seen  wherein  its  probability  consists,  but  in 
reasoning  upon  such  a  scale  we  may  fitly  be  cautious 
and  modest  in  accepting  inferences,  and  our  authors, 
we  may  be  sure,  would  be  the  first  to  recommend  such 


28  TEE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

modesty  and  caution.  Even  at  the  dimensions  to  which 
our  theorizing  has  here  grown,  we  may  for  instance  dis- 
cern the  possible  alternative  of  a  simultaneous  or  rhyth- 
mically successive  generation  and  destruction  of  vortex- 
atoms  which  would  go  far  to  modify  the  conclusion  just 
suggested.  But  here  we  must  pause  for  a  moment,  re- 
serving for  a  second  paper  the  weightier  thoughts  as  to 
futurity  which  our  authors  have  sought  to  enwrap  in 
these  sublime  physical  speculations. 


PART  SECOND. 

UP  to  this  point,  however  remote  from  ordinary 
every-day  thoughts  may  be  the  region  of  specula- 
tion which  we  have  been  called  upon  to  traverse,  we 
have  still  kept  within  the  limits  of  legitimate  scientific 
hypothesis.  Though  we  have  ventured  for  a  goodly 
distance  into  the  unknown,  we  have  not  yet  been 
required  to  abandon  our  base  of  operations  in  the 
known.  Of  the  views  presented  in  the  preceding  paper, 
some  are  wellnigh  certainly  established,  some  are  prob- 
able, some  have  a  sort  of  plausibility,  others  —  to  which 
we  have  refrained  from  giving  assent  —  may  possibly 
be  true ;  but  none  are  irretrievably  beyond  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  scientific  tests.  No  suggestion  has  so  far  been 
broached  which  a  very  little  further  increase  of  our 
scientific  knowledge  may  not  show  to  be  either  emi- 
nently probable  or  eminently  improbable.  We  have 
kept  pretty  clear  of  mere  subjective  guesses,  such  as 
men  may  wrangle  about  forever  without  coming  to  any 
conclusion.  The  theory  of  the  nebular  origin  of  our 
planetary  system  has  come  to  command  the  assent 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 


29 


of  all  persons  qualified  to  appreciate  the  evidence  on 
which  it  is  based ;  and  the  more  immediate  conclusions 
which  we  have  drawn  from  that  theory  are  only  such 
as  are  commonly  drawn  by  astronomers  and  physicists. 
The  doctrine  of  an  intermolecular  and  interstellar  ether 
is  wrapped  up  in  the  well-established  undulatory  theory 
of  light.  Such  is  by  no  means  the  case  with  Sir  Wil- 
liam Thomson's  vortex-atom  theory,  which  to-day  is  in 
somewhat  the  same  condition  as  the  undulatory  theory 
of  Huyghens  two,centuries  ago.  This,  however,  is  none 
the  less  a  hypothesis  truly  scientific  in  conception,  and 
in  the  speculations  to  which  it  leads  us  we  are  still  sure 
of  dealing  with  views  that  admit  at  least  of  definite 
expression  and  treatment.  In  other  words,  though  our 
study  of  the  visible  universe  has  led  us  to  the  recogni- 
tion of  a  kind  of  unseen  world  underlying  the  world  of 
things  that  are  seen,  yet  concerning  the  economy  of  this 
unseen  world  we  have  not  been  led  to  entertain  any 
hypothesis  that  has  not  its  possible  justification  in  our 
experiences  of  visible  phenomena. 

We  are  now  called  upon,  following  in  the  wake  of 
our  esteemed  authors,  to  venture  on  a  different  sort  of 
exploration,  in  which  we  must  cut  loose  altogether  from 
our  moorings  in  the  world  of  which  we  have  definite 
experience.  We  are  invited  to  entertain  suggestions 
concerning  the  peculiar  economy  of  the  invisible  por- 
tion of  the  universe  which  we  have  no  means  of  sub- 
jecting to  any  sort  of  test  of  probability,  either  experi- 
mental or  deductive.  These  suggestions  are,  therefore, 
not  to  be  regarded  as  properly  scientific ;  but,  with  this 
word  of  caution,  we  may  proceed  to  show  what  they 
are. 

Compared  with  the  life  and  death  of  cosmical  systems 
which  we  have  heretofore  contemplated,  •  the  life  and 


30  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

death  of  individuals  of  the  human  race  may  perhaps 
seem  a  small  matter ;  yet  because  we  are  ourselves  the 
men  who  live  and  die,  the  small  event  is  of  vastly 
greater  interest  to  us  than  the  grand  series  of  events 
of  which  it  is  part  and  parcel.  It  is  natural  that 
we  should  be  more  interested  in  the  ultimate  fate  of 
humanity  than  in  the  fate  of  a  world  which  is  of 
no  account  to  us  save  as  our  present  dwelling-place. 
Whether  the  human  soul  is  to  come  to  an  end  or  not 
is  to  us  a  more  important  question  than  whether  the 
visible  universe,  with  its  matter  and  energy,  is  to  be  ab- 
sorbed in  an  invisible  ether.  It  is  indeed  only  because 
we  are  interested  in  the  former  question  that  we  are  so 
curious  about  the  latter.  If  we  could  dissociate  our- 
selves from  the  material  universe,  our  habitat,  we 
should  probably  speculate  much  less  about  its  past  and 
future.  We  care  very  little  what  becomes  of  the  black 
ball  of  the  earth,  after  all  life  has  vanished  from  its 
surface ;  or,  if  we  care  at  all  about  it,  it  is  only  because 
our  thoughts  about  the  career  of  the  earth  are  necessa- 
rily mixed  up  with  our  thoughts  about  life.  Hence  in 
considering  the  probable  ultimate  destiny  of  the  physi- 
cal universe,  our  innermost  purpose  must  be  to  know 
what  is  to  become  of  all  this  rich  and  wonderful  life  of 
which  the  physical  universe  is  the  theatre.  Has  it  all 
been  developed,  apparently  at  almost  infinite  waste  of 
effort,  only  to  be  abolished  again  before  it  has  attained 
to  completeness,  or  does  it  contain  or  shelter  some  in- 
destructible element  which  having  drawn  sustenance 
for  a  while  from  the  senseless  turmoil  of  physical  phe- 
nomena shall  still  survive  their  final  decay?  This 
question  is  closely  connected  with  the  time-honoured 
question  of  the  meaning,  purpose,  or  tendency  of  the 
world.  In  the  career  of  the  world  is  life  an  end,  or  a 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD.  31 

means  toward  an  end,  or  only  an  incidental  phenome- 
non in  which  we  can  discover  no  meaning  ?  Contempo- 
rary theologians  seem  generally  to  believe  that  one 
necessary  result  of  modern  scientific  inquiry  must  be 
the  destruction  of  the  belief  in  immortal  life,  since 
against  every  thoroughgoing  expounder  of  scientific 
knowledge  they  seek  to  hurl  the  charge  of  "  material- 
ism." Their  doubts,  however,  are  not  shared  by  our 
authors,  thorough  men  of  science  as  they  are,  though 
their  mode  of  dealing  with  the  question  may  not  be 
such  as  we  can  well  adopt.  While  upholding  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution,  and  all  the  so-called  "  materialistic  " 
views  of  modern  science,  they  not  only  regard  the  hy- 
pothesis of  a  future  life  as  admissible,  but  they  even 
go  so  far  as  to  propound  a  physical  theory  as  to  the 
nature  of  existence  after  death.  Let  us  see  what  this 
physical  theory  is. 

As  far  as  the  visible  universe  is  concerned,  we  do  not 
find  in  it  any  evidence  of  immortality  or  of  permanence 
of  any  sort,  unless  it  be  in  the  sum  of  potential  and 
kinetic  energies  on  the  persistency  of  which  depends 
our  principle  of  continuity.  In  ordinary  language  "  the 
stars  in  their  courses  "  serve  as  symbols  of  permanence, 
yet  we  have  found  reason  to  regard  them  as  but  tempo- 
rary phenomena.  So,  in  the  language  of  our  authors, 
"  if  we  take  the  individual  man,  we  find  that  he  lives 
his  short  tale  of  years,  and  that  then  the  visible  ma- 
chinery which  connects  him  with  the  past,  as  well  as 
that  which  enables  him  to  act  in  the  present,  falls  into 
ruin  and  is  brought  to  an  end.  If  any  germ  or  poten- 
tiality remains,  it  is  certainly  not  connected  with  the 
visible  order  of  things."  In  like  manner  our  race  is 
pretty  sure  to  come  to  an  end  long  before  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  planet  from  which  it  now  gets  its  sustenance. 


3  2  THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 

And  in  our  authors'  opinion  even  the  universe  will  by 
and  by  become  "  old  and  effete,  no  less  truly  than  the 
individual :  it  is  a  glorious  garment  this  visible  uni- 
verse, but  not  an  immortal  one ;  we  must  look  else- 
where if  we  are  to  be  clothed  with  immortality  as  with 
a  garment." 

It  is  at  this  point  that  our  authors  call  attention  to 
"  the  apparently  wasteful  character  of  the  arrangements 
of  the  visible  universe."  The  fact  is  one  which  we  have 
already  sufficiently  described,  but  we  shall  do  well  to 
quote  the  words  in  which  our  authors  recur  to  it :  "  All 
but  a  very  small  portion  of  the  sun's  heat  goes  day  by 
day  into  what  we  call  empty  space,  and  it  is  only  this 
very  small  remainder  that  is  made  use  of  by  the  various 
planets  for  purposes  of  their  own.  Can  anything  be 
more  perplexing  than  this  seemingly  frightful  expendi- 
ture of  the  very  life  and  essence  of  the  system  ?  That 
this  vast  store  of  high-class  energy  should  be  doing 
nothing  but  travelling  outwards  in  space  at  the  rate 
of  188,000  miles  per  second  is  hardly  conceivable,  espe- 
cially when  the  result  of  it  is  the  inevitable  destruction 
of  the  visible  universe." 

Pursuing  this  teleological  argument,  it  is  suggested 
that  perhaps  this  apparent  wraste  of  energy  is  "  only  an 
arrangement  in  virtue  of  which  our  universe  keeps  up  a 
memory  of  the  past  at  the  expense  of  the  present,  inas- 
much as  all  memory  consists  in  an  investiture  of  present 
resources  in  order  to  keep  a  hold  upon  the  past."  Re- 
course is  had  to  the  ingenious  argument  in  which  Mr. 
Babba,ge  showed  that  "  if  we  had  power  to  follow  and 
detect  the  minutest  effects  of  any  disturbance,  each  par- 
ticle of  existing  matter  must  be  a  register  of  all  that 
has  happened.  The  track  of  every  canoe,  of  every 
vessel  that  has  yet  disturbed  the  surface  of  the  ocean, 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD.  33 

whether  impelled  by  manual  force  or  elemental  power, 
remains  forever  registered  in  the  future  movement  of  all 
succeeding  particles  which  may  occupy  its  place.  The 
furrow  which  is  left  is,  indeed,  instantly  filled  up  by 
the  closing  waters ;  but  they  draw  after  them  other  and 
larger  portions  of  the  surrounding  element,  and  these 
again,  once  moved,  communicate  motion  to  others  in 
endless  succession."  In  like  manner,  "  the  air  itself  is 
one  vast  library,  on  whose  pages  are  forever  written  all 
that  man  has  ever  said  or  even  whispered.  There  in 
their  mutable  but  unerring  characters,  mixed  with  the 
earliest  as  well  as  the  latest  sighs  of  mortality,  stand 
forever  recorded  vows  unredeemed,  promises  unfulfilled, 
perpetuating  in  the  united  movements  of  each  particle 
the  testimony  of  man's  changeful  will."*  In  some  such 
way  as  this,  records  of  every  movement  that  takes  place 
in  the  world  are  each  moment  transmitted,  with  the 
speed  of  light,  through  the  invisible  ocean  of  ether  with 
which  the  world  is  surrounded.  Even  the  molecular 
displacements  which  occur  in  our  brains  when  we  feel 
and  think  are  thus  propagated  in  their  effects  into  the 
unseen  world.  The  world  of  ether  is  thus  regarded  by 
our  authors  as  in  some  sort  the  obverse  or  complement 
of  the  world  of  sensible  matter,  so  that  whatever  energy 
is  dissipated  in  the  one  is  by  the  same  act  accumulated 
in  the  other.  It  is  like  the  negative  plate  in  photog- 
raphy, where  light  answers  to  shadow  and  shadow  to 
light.  Or,  still  better,  it  is  like  the  case  of  an  equation 
in  which  whatever  quantity  you  take  from  one  side  is 
added  to  the  other  with  a  contrary  sign,  while  the  rela- 
tion of  equality  remains  undisturbed.  Thus,  it  will  be 
noticed,  from  the  ingenious  and  subtle,  but  quite  defen- 

*  Babbage,  Ninth  Bridgewater  Treatise,  p.  115  ;  Jevons,  Principles 
of  Science,  Vol.  II.  p.  455. 

2*  C 


34 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 


sible  suggestion  of  Mr.  Babbage,  a  leap  is  made  to  an 
assumption  which  cannot  be  defended  scientifically,  but 
only  teleologically.  It  is  one  thing  to  say  that  every 
movement  in  the  visible  world  transmits  a  record  of 
itself  to  the  surrounding  ether,  in  such  a  way  that  from 
the  undulation  of  the  ether  a  sufficiently  powerful  in- 
telligence might  infer  the  character  of  the  generating 
movement  in  the  visible  world.  It  is  quite  another 
thing  to  say  that  the  ether  is  organized  in  such  a  com- 
plex and  delicate  way  as  to  be  like  a  negative  image  or 
counterpart  of  the  world  of  sensible  matter.  The  latter 
view  is  no  doubt  ingenious,  but  it  is  gratuitous.  It  is 
sustained  not  by  scientific  analogy,  but  by  the  desire  to 
find  some  assignable  use  for  the  energy  which  is  con- 
stantly escaping  from  visible  matter  into  invisible  ether. 
The  moment  we  ask  how  do  we  know  that  this  energy 
is  not  really  wasted,  or  that  it  is  not  put  to  some  use 
wholly  undiscoverable  by  human  intelligence,  this  as- 
sumption of  an  organized  ether  is  at  once  seen  to  be 
groundless.  It  belongs  not  to  the  region  of  science,  but 
to  that  of  pure  mythology. 

In  justice  to  our  authors,  however,  it  should  be 
remembered  that  this  assumption  is  put  forth  not 
as  something  scientifically  probable,  but  as  something 
which  for  aught  we  know  to  the  contrary  may  possibly 
be  true.  This,  to  be  sure,  we  need  not  deny ;  nor  if  we 
once  allow  this  prodigious  leap  of  inference,  shall  we 
find  much  difficulty  in  reaching  the  famous  conclusion 
that  "  thought  conceived  to  affect  the  matter  of  another 
universe  simultaneously  with  this  may  explain  a  future 
state."  This  proposition,  quaintly  couched  in  an  ana- 
gram, like  the  discoveries  of  old  astronomers,  was  pub- 
lished last  year  in  "Nature,"  as  containing  the  gist  of  the 
forthcoming  book.  On  the  negative-image  hypothesis 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 


35 


it  is  not  hard  to  see  liow  thought  is  conceived  to  affect 
the  seen  and  the  unseen  worlds  simultaneously.  Every 
act  of  consciousness  is  accompanied  by  molecular  dis- 
placements in  the  brain,  and  these  are  of  course  re- 
sponded to  by  movements  in  the  ethereal  world.  Thus 
as  a  series  of  conscious  states  build  up  a  continuous 
memory  in  strict  accordance  with  physical  laws  of 
motion,*  so  a  correlative  memory  is  simultaneously 
built  up  in  the  ethereal  world  out  of  the  ethereal  cor- 
relatives of  the  molecular  displacements  which  go  on  in 
our  brains.  And  as  there  is  a  continual  transfer  of 
energy  from  the  visible  world  to  the  ether,  the  extinc- 
tion of  vital  energy  which  we  call  death  must  coincide 
in  some  way  with  the  awakening  of  vital  energy  in  the 
correlative  world ;  so  that  the  darkening  of  conscious- 
ness here  is  coincident  with  its  dawning  there.  In  this 
way  death  is  for  the  individual  but  a  transfer  from  one 
physical  state  of  existence  to  another ;  and  so,  on  the 
largest  scale,  the  death  or  final  loss  of  energy  by  the 
whole  visible  universe  has  its  counterpart  in  the  ac- 
quirement of  a  maximum  of  life  by  the  correlative 
unseen  world. 

There  seems  to  be  a  certain  sort  of  rigorous  logical 
consistency  in  this  daring  speculation ;  but  really  the 
propositions  of  which  it  consists  are  so  far  from  answer- 
ing to  anything  within  the  domain  of  human  experience 
that  we  are  unable  to  tell  whether  any  one  of  them 
logically  follows  from  its  predecessor  or  not.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  we  are  quite  out  of  the  region  of  scientific 
tests,  and  to  whatever  view  our  authors  may  urge  we 
can  only  languidly  assent  that  it  is  out  of  our  power  to 
disprove  it. 

The  essential  weakness  of  such  a  theory  as  this  lies 

*  See  my  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,  Vol.  II..  pp.  142-148. 


36  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

in  the  fact  that  it  is  thoroughly  materialistic  in  char- 
acter.    It  is  currently  assumed  that  the  doctrine  of  a 
life  after  death  cannot   be  defended   on   materialistic 
grounds,  but  this  is  altogether  too  hasty  an  assumption. 
Our  authors,  indeed,  are  not  philosophical  materialists, 
like  Dr.  Priestley,  —  who  nevertheless   believed  in   a 
future  life,  —  but  one  of  the  primary  doctrines  of  mate- 
rialism lies  at  the  bottom  of  their  argument.     Material- 
ism holds  for  one  thing  that  consciousness  is  a  product 
of  a  peculiar  organization  of  matter,  and  for  another 
thing  that  consciousness  cannot  survive  the  disorgani- 
zation of  the  material  body  with  which  it  is  associated. 
As  held  by  philosophical  materialists,  like  Biichner  and 
Moleschott,  these  two  opinions  are  strictly  consistent 
with  each  other ;  nay,  the  latter  seems  to  be  the  inevita- 
ble inference  from  the  former,  though  Priestley  did  not 
so  regard  it.     Now  our  authors  very  properly  refuse  to 
commit  themselves  to  the  opinion  that  mind  is  the  prod- 
uct of  matter,  but  their  argument  nevertheless  implies 
that  some  sort  of  material  vehicle  is  necessary  for  the 
continuance  of  mind  in  a  future  state  of  existence.    This 
material  vehicle  they  seek  to  supply  in  the  theory  which 
connects  by  invisible  bonds  of  transmitted  energy  the 
perishable  material  body  with   its   counterpart  in  the 
world  of  ether.     The  materialism  of  the  argument  is 
indeed  partly  veiled  by  the  terminology  in  which  this 
counterpart   is  called  a  "spiritual  body,"  but  in  this 
novel  use  or  abuse  of  scriptural  language  there  seems 
to  me  to  be  a  strange  confusion  of  ideas.     Bear  in  mind 
that  the  "  invisible  universe  "  into  which  energy  is  con- 
stantly passing  is  simply  the  luminiferous  ether,  which 
our  authors,  to  suit  the  requirements  of  their  hypothe- 
sis, have  gratuitously  endowed  with  a  complexity  and 
variety  of  structure  analogous  to  that  of  the  visible 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.  37 

world  of  matter.  Their  language  is  not  always  quite  so 
precise  as  one  could  desire,  for  while  they  sometimes 
speak  of  the  ether  itself  as  the  "  unseen  universe,"  they 
sometimes  allude  to  a  primordial  medium  yet  subtler  in 
constitution  and  presumably  more  immaterial.  Herein 
lies  the  confusion.  Why  should  the  luminiferous  ether, 
or  any  primordial  medium  in  which  it  may  have  been 
generated,  be  regarded  as  in  any  way  "  spiritual "  ? 
Great  physicists,  like  less  trained  thinkers,  are  some- 
times liable  to  be  unconsciously  influenced  by  old  asso- 
ciations of  ideas  which,  ostensibly  repudiated,  still  lurk 
under  cover  of  the  words  we  use.  I  fear  that  the  old 
associations  which  led  the  ancients  to  describe  the  soul 
as  a  breath  or  a  shadow,  and  which  account  for  the 
etymologies  of  such  words  as  "ghost"  and  "spirit,"  have 
had  something  to  do  with  this  spiritualization  of  the 
interstellar  ether.  Some  share  may  also  have  been  con- 
tributed by  the  Platonic  notion  of  the  "grossness"  or 
"  bruteness  "  of  tangible  matter,  —  a  notion  which  has 
survived  in  Christian  theology,  and  which  educated 
men  of  the  present  day  have  by  no  means  universally 
outgrown.  Save  for  some  such  old  associations  as  these, 
why  should  it  be  supposed  that  matter  becomes  "  spirit- 
ualized" as  it  diminishes  in  apparent  substantiality  ? 
Why  should  matter  be  pronounced  respectable  in  the 
inverse  ratio  of  its  density  or  ponderability?  Why 
is  a  diamond  any  more  chargeable  with  "grossness" 
than  a  cubic  centimetre  of  hydrogen  ?  Obviously  such 
fancies  are  purely  of  mythologic  parentage.  Now 
the  luminiferous  ether,  upon  which  our  authors  make 
such  extensive  demands,  may  be  physically  "  ethereal " 
enough,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  elasticity  which  leads 
Professor  Jevons  to  characterize  it  as  "  adamantine " ; 
but  most  assuredly  we  have  not  the  slightest  reason  for 


38  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

speaking  of  it  as  "  immaterial "  or  "  spiritual."  Though 
we  are  unable  to  weigh  it  in  the  balance,  we  at  least 
know  it  as  a  transmitter  of  undulatory  movements,  the 
size  and  shape  of  which  we  can  accurately  measure. 
Its  force-relations  with  ponderable  matter  are  not  only 
universally  and  incessantly  maintained,  but  they  have 
that  precisely  quantitative  character  which  implies  an 
essential  identity  between  the  innermost  natures  of  the 
two  substances.  We  have  seen  reason  for  thinking  it 
probable  that  ether  and  ordinary  matter  are  alike  com- 
posed of  vortex-rings  in  a  quasi-frictionless  fluid;  but 
whatever  be  the  fate  of  this  subtle  hypothesis,  we  may 
be  sure  that  no  theory  will  ever  be  entertained  in  which 
the  analysis  of  ether  shall  require  different  symbols 
from  that  of  ordinary  matter.  In  our  authors'  theory, 
therefore,  the  putting  on  of  immortality  is  in  no  wise  the 
passage  from  a  material  to  a  spiritual  state.  It  is  the 
passage  from  one  kind  of  materially  conditioned  state  to 
another.  The  theory  thus  appeals  directly  to  our  experi- 
ences of  the  behaviour  of  matter;  and  in  deriving  so 
little  support  as  it  does  from  these  experiences,  it  re- 
mains an  essentially  weak  speculation,  whatever  we  may 
think  of  its  ingenuity.  For  so  long  as  we  are  asked  to 
accept  conclusions  drav/n  from  our  experiences  of  the 
material  world,  we  are  justified  in  demanding  something 
more  than  mere  unconditioned  possibility.  We  require 
some  positive  evidence,  be  it  ever  so  little  in  amount ; 
and  no  theory  which  cannot  furnish  such  positive  evi- 
dence is  likely  to  carry  to  our  minds  much  practical 
conviction. 

This  is  what  I  meant  by  saying  that  the  great  weak- 
ness of  the  hypothesis  here  criticized  lies  in  its  mate- 
rialistic character.  In  contrast  with  this  we  shall  pres- 
ently see  that  the  assertion  of  a  future  life  which  is  not 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 


39 


materially  conditioned,  though  unsupported  by  any  item 
of  experience  whatever,  may  nevertheless  be  an  impreg- 
nable assertion.  But  first  I  would  conclude  the  fore- 
going criticism  by  ruling  out  altogether  the  sense  in 
which  our  authors  use  the  expression  "Unseen  Uni- 
verse." Scientific  inference,  however  remote,  is  con- 
nected by  such  insensible  gradations  with  ordinary  per- 
ception, that  one  may  well  question  the  propriety  of 
applying  the  term  "  unseen  "  to  that  which  is  presented 
to  "  the  mind's  eye "  as  inevitable  matter  of  inference. 
It  is  true  that  we  cannot  see  the  ocean  of  ether  in 
which  visible  matter  floats ;  but  there  are  many  other 
invisible  things  which  yet  we  do  not  regard  as  part  of 
the  "  unseen  world."  I  do  not  see  the  air  which  I  am 
now  breathing  within  the  four  walls  of  my  study,  yet 
its  existence  is  sufficiently  a  matter  of  sense-perception 
as  it  fills  my  lungs  and  fans  my  cheek.  The  atoms 
which  compose  a  drop  of  water  are  not  only  invisible, 
but  cannot  in  any  way  be  made  the  objects  of  sense- 
perception  ;  yet  by  proper  inferences  from  their  be- 
haviour we  can  single  them  out  for  measurement,  so 
that  Sir  William  Thomson  can  tell  us  that  if  the  drop 
of  water  were  magnified  to  the  size  of  the  earth,  the 
constituent  atoms  would  be  larger  than  peas,  but  not  so 
large  as  billiard-balls.  If  we  do  not  see  such  atoms 
with  our  eyes,  we  have  one  adequate  reason  in  their 
tiny  dimensions,  though  there  are  further  reasons  than 
this.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  why  the  luminiferous 
ether  should  be  relegated  to  the  "unseen  world"  any 
more  than  the  material  atom.  Whatever  we  know  as 
possessing  resistance  and  extension,  whatever  we  can 
subject  to  mathematical  processes  of  measurement,  we 
also  conceive  as  existing  in  such  shape  that,  with  appro- 
priate eyes  and  under  proper  visual  conditions,  we  might 


4o  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

see  it,  and  we  are  not  entitled  to  draw  any  line  of  de- 
marcation between  such  an  object  of  inference  and  oth- 
ers which  may  be  made  objects  of  sense-perception.  To 
set  apart  the  ether  as  constituting  an  "unseen  universe" 
is  therefore  illegitimate  and  confusing.  It  introduces  a 
distinction  where  there  is  none,  and  obscures  the  fact 
that  both  invisible  ether  and  visible  matter  form  but 
one  grand  universe  in  which  the  sum  of  energy  remains 
constant,  though  the  order  of  its  distribution  endlessly 
varies. 

Very  different  would  be  the  logical  position  of  a  the- 
ory which  should  assume  the  existence  of  an  "  Unseen 
World  "  entirely  spiritual  in  constitution,  and  in  which 
material  conditions  like  those  of  the  visible  world  should 
have  neither  place  nor  meaning.  Such  a  world  would 
not  consist  of  ethers  or  gases  or  ghosts,  but  of  purely 
psychical  relations  akin  to  such  as  constitute  thoughts 
and  feelings  when  our  minds  are  least  solicited  by 
sense-perceptions.  In  thus  marking  off  the  "  Unseen 
World "  from  the  objective  universe  of  which  we  have 
knowledge,  our  line  of  demarcation  would  at  least  be 
drawn  in  the  right  place.  The  distinction  between 
psychical  and  material  phenomena  is  a  distinction  of 
a  different  order  from  all  other  distinctions  known  to 
philosophy,  and  it  immeasurably  transcends  all  others. 
The  progress  of  modern  discovery  has  in  no  respect 
weakened  the  force  of  Descartes's  remark,  that  between 
that  of  which  the  differential  attribute  is  Thought  and 
that  of  which  the  differential  attribute  is  Extension, 
there  can  be  no  similarity,  no  community  of  nature 
whatever.  By  no  scientific  cunning  of  experiment  or 
deduction  can  Thought  be  weighed  or  measured  or  in 
any  way  assimilated  to  such  things  as  may  be  made  the 
actual  or  possible  objects  of  sense-perception.  Modern 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.  4! 

discovery,  so  far  from  bridging  over  the  chasm  between 
Mind  and  Matter,  tends  rather  to  exhibit  the  distinc- 
tion between  them  as  absolute.  It  has,  indeed,  been 
rendered  highly  probable  that  every  act  of  conscious- 
ness is  accompanied  by  a  molecular  motion  in  the  cells 
and  fibres  of  the  brain;  and  materialists  have  found 
great  comfort  in  this  fact,  while  theologians  and  persons 
of  little  faith  have  been  very  much  frightened  by  it. 
But  since  no  one  ever  pretended  that  thought  can  go 
on,  under  the  conditions  of  the  present  life,  without  a 
brain,  one  finds  it  rather  hard  to  sympathize  either  with 
the  self-congratulations  of  Dr.  Biichner's  disciples*  or 
with  the  terrors  of  their  opponents.  But  what  has  been 
less  commonly  remarked  is  the  fact  that  when  the 
thought  and  the  molecular  movement  thus  occur  simul- 
taneously, in  no  scientific  sense  is  the  thought  the 
product  of  the  molecular  movement.  The  sun-derived 
energy  of  motion  latent  in  the  food  we  eat  is  variously 
transformed  within  the  organism,  until  some  of  it  ap- 
pears as  the  motion  of  the  molecules  of  a  little  globule 
of  nerve-matter  in  the  brain.  In  a  rough  way  we  might 
thus  say  that  the  chemical  energy  of  the  food  indirectly 
produces  the  motion  of  these  little  nerve-molecules. 
But  does  this  motion  of  nerve-molecules  now  produce 
a  thought  or  state  of  consciousness  ?  By  no  means.  It 
simply  produces  some  other  motion  of  nerve-molecules, 
and  this  in  turn  produces  motion  of  contraction  or  ex- 
pansion in  some  muscle,  or  becomes  transformed  into 
the  chemical  energy  of  some  secreting  gland.  At  no 
point  in  the  whole  circuit  does  a  unit  of  motion  disap- 
pear as  motion  to  reappear  as  a  unit  of  consciousness. 

*  The  Nation  once  wittily  described  these  people  tas  "people  who 
believe  that  they  are  going  to  die  like  the  beasts,  and  who  congratulate 
themselves  that  they  are  going  to  die  like  the  beasta/' 


42  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

The  physical  process  is  complete  in  itself,  and  the 
thought  does  not  enter  into  it.  All  that  we  can  say 
is,  that  the  occurrence  of  the  thought  is  simultaneous 
with  that  part  of  the  physical  process  which  consists 
of  a  molecular  movement  in  the  brain.*  To  be  sure, 
the  thought  is  always  there  when  summoned,  but  it 
stands  outside  the  dynamic  circuit,  as  something  utterly 
alien  from  and  incomparable  with  the  events  which 
summon  it.  No  doubt,  as  Professor  Tyndall  observes, 
if  we  knew  exhaustively  the  physical  state  of  the  brain, 
"the  corresponding  thought  or  feeling  might  be  inferred; 
or,  given  the  thought  or  feeling,  the  corresponding  state 
of  the  brain  might  be  inferred.  But  how  inferred  ?  It 
would  be  at  bottom  not  a  case  of  logical  inference  at  all, 
but  of  empirical  association.  You  may  reply  that  many 
of  the  inferences  of  science  are  of  this  character;  the 
inference,  for  example,  that  an  electric  current  of  a 
given  direction  will  deflect  a  magnetic  needle  in  a  defi- 
nite way ;  but  the  cases  differ  in  this,  that  the  passage 
from  the  current  to  the  needle,  if  not  demonstrable,  is 
thinkable,  and  that  we  entertain  no  doubt  as  to  the  final 
mechanical  solution  of  the  problem.  But  the  passage 
from  the  physics  of  the  brain  to  the  corresponding  facts 
of  consciousness  is  unthinkable.  Granted  that  a  defi- 
nite thought  and  a  definite  molecular  action  in  the  brain 
occur  simultaneously ;  we  do  not  possess  the  intellectual 
organ,  nor  apparently  any  rudiment  of  the  organ,  which 
would  enable  us  to  pass  by  a  process  of  reasoning  from 
the  one  to  the  other.  They  appear  together,  but  we  do 
not  know  why."  -f- 

An  unseen  world  consisting  of  purely  psychical  or 

*  For  a  fuller  exposition  of  this  point,  see  my  Outlines  of  Cosmic 
Philosophy,  Vol.  II.  pp.  436-445. 
+  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  119. 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 


43 


spiritual  phenomena  would  accordingly  be  demarcated 
by  an  absolute  gulf  from  what  we  call  the  material  uni- 
verse, but  would  not  necessarily  be  discontinuous  with 
the  psychical  phenomena  which  we  find  manifested  in 
connection  with  the  world  of  matter.  The  transfer  of 
matter,  or  physical  energy,  or  anything  else  that  is 
quantitatively  measurable,  into  such  an  unseen  world, 
may  be  set  down  as  impossible,  by  reason  of  the  very 
definition  of  such  a  world.  Any  hypothesis  which 
should  assume  such  a  transfer  would  involve  a  contra- 
diction in  terms.  But  the  hypothesis  of  a  survival  of 
present  psychical  phenomena  in  such  a  world,  after 
being  denuded  of  material  conditions,  is  not  in  itself 
absurd  or  self-contradictory,  though  it  may  be  impossible 
to  support  it  by  any  arguments  drawn  from  the  domain 
of  human  experience.  Such  is  the  shape  which  it  seems 
to  me  that,  in  the  present  state  of  philosophy,  the  hypoth- 
esis of  a  future  life  must  assume.  We  have  nothing 
to  say  to  gross  materialistic  notions  of  ghosts  and  bogies, 
and  spirits  that  upset  tables  and  whisper  to  ignorant 
vulgar  women  the  wonderful  information  that  you  once 
had  an  aunt  Susan.  The  unseen  world  imagined  in  our 
hypothesis  is  not  connected  with  the  present  material 
universe  by  any  such  "  invisible  bonds  "  as  would  allow 
Bacon  and  Addison  to  come  to  Boston  and  write  the  sil- 
liest twaddle  in  the  most  ungrammatical  English  before 
a  roomful  of  people  who  have  never  learned  how  to  test 
what  they  are  pleased  to  call  the  "evidence  of  their 
senses."  Our  hypothesis  is  expressly  framed  so  as  to 
exclude  all  intercourse  whatever  between  the  unseen 
world  of  spirit  unconditioned  by  matter  and  the  present 
world  of  spirit  conditioned  by  matter  in  which  all  our 
experiences  have  been  gathered.  The  hypothesis  being 
framed  in  such  a  way,  the  question  is,  What  has  philoso- 


44  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

phy  to  say  to  it  ?  Can  we,  by  searching  our  experi- 
ences, find  any  reason  for  adopting  such  an  hypothesis  ? 
Or,  on  the  other  hand,  supposing  we  can  find  no  such 
reason,  would  the  total  failure  of  experimental  evidence 
justify  us  in  rejecting  it  ? 

The  question  is  so  important  that  I  will  restate  it.  I 
have  imagined  a  world  made  up  of  psychical  phenomena, 
freed  from  the  material  conditions  under  which  alone  we 
know  such  phenomena.  Can  we  adduce  any  proof  of 
the  possibility  of  such  a  world  ?  Or  if  we  cannot,  does 
our  failure  raise  the  slightest  presumption  that  such  a 
world  is  impossible  ? 

The  reply  to  the  first  clause  of  the  question  is  suffi- 
ciently obvious.  We  have  no  experience  whatever  of 
psychical  phenomena  save  as  manifested  in  connection 
with  material  phenomena.  We  know  of  Mind  only  as 
a  group  of  activities  which  are  never  exhibited  to  us 
except  through  the  medium  of  motions  of  matter.  In 
all  our  experience  we  have  never  encountered  such 
activities  save  in  connection  with  certain  very  compli- 
cated groupings  of  highly  mobile  material  particles  into 
aggregates  which  we  call  living  organisms.  And  we 
have  never  found  them  manifested  to  a  very  conspicu- 
ous extent  save  in  connection  with  some  of  those 
specially  organized  aggregates  which  have  vertebrate 
skeletons  and  mammary  glands.  Nay,  more,  when  we 
survey  the  net  results  of  our  experience  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time,  we  find  indisputable  evidence  that  in  the  past 
history  of  the  visible  universe  psychical  phenomena  have 
only  begun  to  be  manifested  in  connection  with  certain 
complex  aggregates  of  material  phenomena.  As  these 
material  aggregates  have  age  by  age  become  more  com- 
plex in  structure,  more  complex  psychical  phenomena 
have  been  exhibited.  The  development  of  Mind  has 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 


45 


from  the  outset  been  associated  with  the  development 
of  Matter.  And  to-day,  though  none  of  us  has  any 
knowledge  of  the  end  of  psychical  phenomena  in  his 
own  case,  yet  from  all  the  marks  by  which  we  recog- 
nize such  phenomena  in  our  fellow-creatures,  whether 
brute  or  human,  we  are  taught  that  when  certain  mate- 
rial processes  have  been  gradually  or  suddenly  brought 
to  an  end,  psychical  phenomena  are  no  longer  mani- 
fested. From  first  to  last,  therefore,  our  appeal  to  expe- 
rience gets  but  one  response.  We  have  not  the  faintest 
shadow  of  evidence  wherewith  to  make  it  seem  probable 
that  Mind  can  exist  except  in  connection  with  a  mate- 
rial body.  Viewed  from  this  standpoint  of  terrestrial 
experience,  there  is  no  more  reason  for  supposing  that 
consciousness  survives  the  dissolution  of  the  brain  than 
for  supposing  that  the  pungent  flavour  of  table-salt  sur- 
vives its  decomposition  into  metallic  sodium  and  gaseous 
chlorine. 

Our  answer  from  this  side  is  thus  unequivocal  enough. 
Indeed,  so  uniform  has  been  the  teaching  of  experience 
in  this  respect  that  even  in  their  attempts  to  depict  a 
life  after  death,  men  have  always  found  themselves 
obliged  to  have  recourse  to  materialistic  symbols.  To 
the  mind  of  a  savage  the  future  world  is  a  mere  repro- 
duction of  the  present,  with  its  everlasting  huntings  and 
fightings.  The  early  Christians  looked  forward  to  a 
renovation  of  the  earth  and  the  bodily  resurrection  from 
Sheol  of  the  righteous.  The  pictures  of  hell  and  purga- 
tory, and  even  of  paradise,  in  Dante's  great  poem,  are  so 
intensely  materialistic  as  to  seem  grotesque  in  this  more 
spiritual  age.  But  even  to-day  the  popular  conceptions 
of  heaven  are  by  no  means  freed  from  the  notion  of  mat- 
ter ;  and  persons  of  high  culture,  who  realize  the  inade- 
quacy of  these  popular  conceptions,  are  w.ont  to  avoid 


46 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 


the  difficulty  by  refraining  from  putting  their  hopes  and 
beliefs  into  any  definite  or  describable  form.  Not  un- 
frequently  one  sees  a  smile  raised  at  the  assumption  of 
knowledge  or  insight  by  preachers  who  describe  in  elo- 
quent terms  the  joys  of  a  future  state ;  yet  the  srriile 
does  not  necessarily  imply  any  scepticism  as  to  the 
abstract  probability  of  the  soul's  survival.  The  scep- 
ticism is  aimed  at  the  character  of  the  description  rather 
than  at  the  reality  of  the  thing  described.  It  implies  a 
tacit  agreement,  among  cultivated  people,  that  the  un- 
seen world  must  be  purely  spiritual  in  constitution. 
The  agreement  is  not  habitually  expressed  in  definite 
formulas,  for  the  reason  that  no  mental  image  of  a 
purely  spiritual  world  can  be  formed.  Much  stress  is 
commonly  laid  upon  the  recognition  of  friends  in  a 
future  life ;  and  however  deep  a  meaning  may  be  given 
to  the  phrase  "the  love  of  God,"  one  does  not  easily 
realize  that  a  heavenly  existence  could  be  worth  the 
longing  that  is  felt  for  it,  if  it  were  to  afford  no  further 
scope  for  the  pure  and  tender  household  affections  which 
give  to  the  present  life  its  powerful  though  indefinable 
charm.  Yet  the  recognition  of  friends  in  a  purely  spir- 
itual world  is  something  of  which  we  can  frame  no  con- 
ception whatever.  We  may  look  with  unspeakable  rev- 
erence on  the  features  of  wife  or  child,  less  because  of 
their  physical  beauty  than  because  of  the  beauty  of  soul 
to  which  they  give  expression,  but  to  imagine  the  per- 
ception of  soul  by  soul  apart  from  the  material  structure 
and  activities  in  which  soul  is  manifested,  is  something 
utterly  beyond  our  power.  Nay,  even  when  we  try  to 
represent  to  ourselves  the  psychical  activity  of  any  sin- 
gle soul  by  itself  as  continuing  without  the  aid  of  the 
physical  machinery  of  sensation,  we  get  into  unman- 
ageable difficulties.  A  great  part  of  the  contents  of  our 


THE   UNSEEN   WORLD. 


47 


minds  consists  of  sensuous  (chiefly  visual)  images,  and 
though  we  may  imagine  reflection  to  go  on  without  fur- 
ther images  supplied  by  vision  or  hearing,  touch  or 
taste  or  smell,  yet  we  cannot  well  see  how  fresh  expe- 
riences could  be  gained  in  such  a  state.  The  reader,  if 
he  require  further  illustrations,  can  easily  follow  out 
this  line  of  thought.  Enough  has  no  doubt  been  said  to 
convince  him  that  our  hypothesis  of  the  survival  of  con- 
scious activity  apart  from  material  conditions  is  not  only 
utterly  unsupported  by  any  evidence  that  can  be  gath- 
ered from  the  world  of  which  we  have  experience,  but 
is  utterly  and  hopelessly  inconceivable. 

It  is  inconceivable  because  it  is  entirely  without  foun- 
dation in  experience.  Our  powers  of  conception  are 
closely  determined  by  the  limits  of  our  experience. 
When  a  proposition,  or  combination  of  ideas,  is  sug- 
gested, for  which  there  has  never  been  any  precedent  in 
human  experience,  we  find  it  to  be  unthinkable, — the 
ideas  will  not  combine.  The  proposition  remains  one 
which  we  may  utter  and  defend,  and  perhaps  vituperate 
our  neighbours  for  not  accepting,  but  it  remains  none 
the  less  an  unthinkable  proposition.  It  takes  terms 
which  severally  have  meanings  and  puts  them  together 
into  a  phrase  which  has  no  meaning.*  Now  when  we 
try  to  combine  the  idea  of  the  continuance  of  conscious 
activity  with  the  idea  of  the  entire  cessation  of  material 
conditions,  and  thereby  to  assert  the  existence  of  a 
purely  spiritual  world,  we  find  that  we  have  made  an 
unthinkable  proposition.  We  may  defend  our  hypoth- 
esis as  passionately  as  we  like,  but  when  we  strive 
coolly  to  realize  it  in  thought  we  find  ourselves  baulked 
at  every  step. 

But  now  we  have  to  ask,  How  much  does  this  incon- 

*  See  my  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,  Vol.  I.'  pp.  64  -  67. 


48  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

ceivability  signify  ?  In  most  cases,  when  we  say  that  a 
statement  is  inconceivable,  we  practically  declare  it  to 
be  untrue ;  when  we  say  that  a  statement  is  without 
warrant  in  experience,  we  plainly  indicate  that  we  con- 
sider it  unworthy  of  our  acceptance.  This  is  legitimate 
in  the  majority  of  cases  with  which  we  have  to  deal  in 
the  course  of  life,  because  experience,  and  the  capacities 
of  thought  called  out  and  limited  by  experience,  are 
our  only  guides  in  the  conduct  of  life.  But  every  one 
will  admit  that  our  experience  is  not  infinite,  and  that 
our  capacity  of  conception  is  not  coextensive  with  the 
possibilities  of  existence.  It  is  not  only  possible,  but  in 
the  very  highest  degree  probable,  that  there  are  many 
things  in  heaven,  if  not  on  earth,  which  are  undreamed 
of  in  our  philosophy.  Since  our  ability  to  conceive 
anything  is  limited  by  the  extent  of  our  experience,  and 
since  human  experience  is  very  far  from  being  infinite, 
it  follows  that  there  may  be,  and  in  all  probability  is, 
an  immense  region  of  existence  in  every  way  as  real  as 
the  region  which  we  know,  yet  concerning  which  we 
cannot  form  the  faintest  rudiment  of  a  conception.  Any 
hypothesis  relating  to  such  a  region  of  existence  is  not 
only  not  disproved  by  the  total  failure  of  evidence  in  its 
favour,  but  the  total  failure  of  evidence  does  not  raise 
even  the  slightest  prima  facie  presumption  against  its 
validity. 

These  considerations  apply  with  great  force  to  the 
hypothesis  of  an  unseen  world  in  which  psychical  phe- 
nomena persist  in  the  absence  of  material  conditions. 
It  is  true,  on  the  one  hand,  that  we  can  bring  up  no 
scientific  evidence  in  support  of  such  an  hypothesis. 
But  on  the  other  hand  it  is  equally  true  that  in  the 
very  nature  of  things  no  such  evidence  could  be  ex- 
pected to  be  forthcoming:  even  were  there  such  evi- 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 


49 


dence  in  abundance,  it  could  not  be  accessible  to  us. 
The  existence  of  a  single  soul,  or  congeries  of  psychical 
phenomena,  unaccompanied  by  a  material  body,  would 
be  evidence  sufficient  to  demonstrate  the  hypothesis. 
But  in  the  nature  of  things,  even  were  there  a  million 
such  souls  round  about  us,  we  could  not  become  aware 
of  the  existence  of  one  of  them,  for  we  have  no  organ 
or  faculty  for  the  perception  of  soul  apart  from  the 
material  structure  and  activities  in  which  it  has  been 
manifested  throughout  the  whole  course  of  our  experi- 
ence. Even  our  own  self-consciousness  involves  the 
consciousness  of  ourselves  as  partly  material  bodies. 
These  considerations  show  that  our  hypothesis  is  very 
different  from  the  ordinary  hypotheses  with  which  sci- 
ence deals.  The  entire  absence  of  testimony  does  not  raise 
a  negative  presumption  except  in  cases  where  testimony  is 
accessible.  In  the  hypotheses  with  which  scientific  men 
are  occupied,  testimony  is  always  accessible  ;  and  if  we 
do  not  find  any,  the  presumption  is  raised  that  there  is 
none.  When  Dr.  Bastian  tells  us  that  he  has  found 
living  organisms  to  be  generated  in  sealed  flasks  from 
which  all  living  germs  had  been  excluded,  we  demand 
the  evidence  for  his  assertion.  The  testimony  of  facts 
is  in  this  case  hard  to  elicit,  and  only  skilful  reasoners 
can  properly  estimate  its  worth.  But  still  it  is  all 
accessible.  With  more  or  less  labour  it  can  be  got  at ; 
and  if  we  find  that  Dr.  Bastian  has  produced  no  evi- 
dence save  such  as  may  equally  well  receive  a  different 
interpretation  from  that  which  he  has  given  it,  we 
rightly  feel  that  a  strong  presumption  has  been  raised 
against  his  hypothesis.  It  is  a  case  in  which  we  are 
entitled  to  expect  to  find  the  favouring  facts  if  there 
are  any,  and  so  long  as  we  do  not  find  such,  we  are 
justified  in  doubting  their  existence.  So  when  our 

3  D 


£0  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

authors  propound  the  hypothesis  of  an  unseen  universe 
consisting  of  phenomena  which  occur  in  the  interstellar 
ether,  or  even  in  some  primordial  fluid  with  which  the 
ether  has  physical  relations,  we  are  entitled  to  demand 
their  proofs.  It  is  not  enough  to  tell  us  that  we  can- 
not disprove  such  a  theory.  The  burden  of  proof  lies 
with  them.  The  interstellar  ether  is  something  con- 
cerning the  physical  properties  of  which  we  have  some 
knowledge ;  and  surely,  if  all  the  things  are  going  on 
which  they  suppose  in  a  medium  so  closely  related  to 
ordinary  matter,  there  ought  to  be  some  traceable  indi- 
cations of  the  fact.  At  least,  until  the  contrary  can  be 
shown,  we  must  refuse  to  believe  that  all  the  testimony 
in  a  case  like  this  is  utterly  inaccessible ;  and  accord- 
ingly, so  long  as  none  is  found,  especially  so  long  as 
none  is  even  alleged,  we  feel  that  a  presumption  is 
raised  against  their  theory. 

These  illustrations  will  show,  by  sheer  contrast,  how 
different  it  is  with  the  hypothesis  of  an  unseen  world 
that  is  purely  spiritual.  The  testimony  in  such  a  case 
must,  under  the  conditions  of  the  present  life,  be  forever 
inaccessible.  It  lies  wholly  outside  the  range  of  ex- 
perience. However  abundant  it  may  be,  we  cannot 
expect  to  meet  with  it.  And  accordingly  our  failure  to 
produce  it  does  not  raise  even  the  slightest  presumption 
against  our  theory.  When  conceived  in  this  way,  the 
belief  in  a  future  life  is  without  scientific  support ;  but 
at  the  same  time  it  is  placed  beyond  the  need  of  scien- 
tific support  and  beyond  the  range  of  scientific  criticism. 
It  is  a  belief  which  no  imaginable  future  advance  in 
physical  discovery  can  in  any  way  impugn.  It  is  a 
belief  which  is  in  no  sense  irrational,  and  which  may 
be  logically  entertained  without  in  the  least  affecting 
our  scientific  habit  of  mind  or  influencing  our  scientific 
conclusions. 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD.  5  j 

To  take  a  brief  illustration :  we  have  alluded  to  the 
fact  that  in  the  history  of  our  present  world  the  devel- 
opment of  mental  phenomena  has  gone  on  hand  in  hand 
with  the  development  of  organic  life,  while  at  the  same 
time  we  have  found  it  impossible  to  explain  mental 
phenomena  as  in  any  sense  the  product  of  material  phe- 
nomena. Now  there  is  another  side  to  all  this.  The 
great  lesson  which  Berkeley  taught  mankind  was  that 
what  we  call  material  phenomena  are  really  the  products 
of  consciousness  co-operating  with  some  Unknown  Power 
(not  material)  existing  beyond  consciousness.  We  do 
very  well  to  speak  of  "  matter "  in  common  parlance, 
but  all  that  the  word  really  means  is  a  group  of  quali- 
ties which  have  no  existence  apart  from  our  minds. 
Modern  philosophers  have  quite  generally  accepted  this 
conclusion,  and  every  attempt  to  overturn  Berkeley's 
reasoning  has  hitherto  resulted  in  complete  and  disas- 
trous failure.  In  admitting  this,  we  do  not  admit  the 
conclusion  of  Absolute  Idealism,  that  nothing  exists  out- 
side of  consciousness.  What  we  admit  as  existing  inde- 
pendently of  our  own  consciousness  is  the  Power  that 
causes  in  us  those  conscious  states  which  we  call  the 
perception  of  material  qualities.  We  have  no  reason 
for  regarding  this  Power  as  in  itself  material :  indeed, 
we  cannot  do  so,  since  by  the  theory  material  qualities 
have  no  existence  apart  from  our  minds.  I  have  else- 
where sought  to  show  that  less  difficulty  is  involved  in 
regarding  this  Power  outside  of  us  as  quasi-psychical,  or 
in  some  measure  similar  to  the  mental  part  of  ourselves ; 
and  I  have  gone  on  to  conclude  that  this  Power  may  be 
identical  with  what  men  have,  in  all  times  and  by  the 
aid  of  various  imperfect  symbols,  endeavoured  to  appre- 
hend as  Deity.*  We  are  thus  led  to  a  view  of  tilings 

*  See  my  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,  Part  I.  'Chap.  IV.  ;  Part 
III.  Chaps.  III.,  IV. 


52  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

not  very  unlike  the  views  entertained  by  Spinoza  and 
Berkeley.  We  are  led  to  the  inference  that  what  we 
call  the  material  universe  is  but  the  manifestation  of 
infinite  Deity  to  our  finite  minds.  Obviously,  on  this 
view,  Matter  —  the  only  thing  to  which  materialists 
concede  real  existence  —  is  simply  an  orderly  phantas- 
magoria ;  and  God  and  the  Soul  —  which  materialists 
regard  as  mere  fictions  of  the  imagination — are  the  only 
conceptions  that  answer  to  real  existences. 

In  the  foregoing  paragraph  I  have  been  setting  down 
opinions  with  which  I  am  prepared  to  agree,  and  which 
are  not  in  conflict  with  anything  that  our  study  of  the 
development  of  the  objective  world  has  taught  us.  In 
so  far  as  that  study  may  be  supposed  to  bear  on  the 
question  of  a  future  life,  two  conclusions  are  open  to  us. 
First  we  may  say  that  since  the  phenomena  of  mind 
appear  and  run  their  course  along  with  certain  special- 
ized groups  of  material  phenomena,  so,  too,  they  must 
disappear  when  these  specialized  groups  are  broken  up. 
Or,  in  other  words,  we  may  say  that  every  living  person 
is  an  organized  whole ;  consciousness  is  something  which 
pertains  to  this  organized  whole,  as  music  belongs  to 
the  harp  that  is  entire ;  but  when  the  harp  is  broken  it 
is  silent,  and  when  the  organized  whole  of  personality 
falls  to  pieces  consciousness  ceases  forever.  To  many 
well-disciplined  minds  this  conclusion  seems  irresisti- 
ble ;  and  doubtless  it  would  be  a  sound  one  —  a  good 
Baconian  conclusion  —  if  we  were  to  admit,  with  the 
materialists,  that  the  possibilities  of  existence  are  lim- 
ited by  our  tiny  and  ephemeral  experience. 

But  now,  supposing  some  Platonic  speculator  were  to 
come  along  and  insist  upon  our  leaving  room  for  an 
alternative  conclusion ;  suppose  he  were  to  urge  upon 
us  that  all  this  process  of  material  development,  with 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 


53 


the  discovery  of  which  our  patient  study  has  been 
rewarded,  may  be  but  the  temporary  manifestation  of 
relations  otherwise  unknown  between  ourselves  and  the 
infinite  Deity ;  suppose  he  were  to  argue  that  psychical 
qualities  may  be  inherent  in  a  spiritual  substance  which 
under  certain  conditions  becomes  incarnated  in  matter, 
to  wear  it  as  a  perishable  garment  for  a  brief  season,  but 
presently  to  cast  it  off  and  enter  upon  the  freedom  of  a 
larger  existence ;  —  what  reply  should  we  be  bound  to 
make,  bearing  in  mind  that  the  possibilities  of  existence 
are  in  no  wise  limited  by  our  experience  ?  Obviously 
we  should  be  bound  to  admit  that  in  sound  philosophy 
this  conclusion  is  just  as  likely  to  be  true  as  the  other. 
We  should,  indeed,  warn  him  not  to  call  on  us  to  help 
him  to  establish  it  by  scientific  arguments ;  and  we 
should  remind  him  that  he  must  not  make  illicit  use 
of  his  extra-experiential  hypotheses  by  bringing  them 
into  the  treatment  of  scientific  questions  that  lie  within 
the  range  of  experience.  In  science,  for  example,  we 
make  no  use  of  the  conception  of  a  "spiritual  substance" 
(or  of  a  "  material  substance "  either),  because  we  can 
get  along  sufficiently  well  by  dealing  solely  with  quali- 
ties. But  with  this  general  understanding  we  should 
feel  bound  to  concede  the  impregnableness  of  his  main 
position. 

I  have  supposed  this  theory  only  as  an  illustration, 
not  as  a  theory  which  I  am  prepared  to  adopt.  My 
present  purpose  is  not  to  treat  as  an  advocate  the  ques- 
tion of  a  future  life,  but  to  endeavour  to  point  out  what 
conditions  should  be  observed  in  treating  the  question 
philosophically.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  great  deal  is 
gained  when  we  have  distinctly  set  before  us  what  are 
the  peculiar  conditions  of  proof  in  the  case  of  such  tran- 
scendental questions.  \\e  have  gained-  a  great  deal 


54 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 


when  we  have  learned  how  thoroughly  impotent,  how 
truly  irrelevant,  is  physical  investigation  in  the  presence 
of  such  a  question.  If  we  get  not  much  positive  satis- 
faction for  our  unquiet  yearnings,  we  occupy  at  any  rate 
a  sounder  philosophic  position  when  we  recognize  the 
limits  within  which  our  conclusions,  whether  positive  or 
negative,  are  valid. 

It  seems  not  improbable  that  Mr.  Mill  may  have  had 
in  mind  something  like  the  foregoing  considerations 
when  he  suggested  that  there  is  no  reason  why  one 
should  not  entertain  the  belief  in  a  future  life  if  the 
belief  be  necessary  to  one's  spiritual  comfort.  Perhaps 
no  suggestion  in  Mr.  Mill's  richly  suggestive  posthu- 
mous work  has  been  more  generally  condemned  as  un- 
philosophical,  on  the  ground  that  in  matters  of  belief 
we  must  be  guided,  not  by  our  likes  and  dislikes,  but 
by  the  evidence  that  is  accessible.  The  objection  is 
certainly  a  sound  one  so  far  as  it  relates  to  scientific 
questions  where  evidence  is  accessible.  To  hesitate  to 
adopt  a  well-supported  theory  because  of  some  vague 
preference  for  a  different  view  is  in  scientific  matters 
the  one  unpardonable  sin,  —  a  sin  which  has  been  only 
too  often  committed.  Even  in  matters  which  lie  beyond 
the  range  of  experience,  where  evidence  is  inaccessible, 
desire  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  by  itself  an  adequate 
basis  for  belief.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  Mr.  Mill 
showed  a  deeper  knowledge  of  the  limitations  of  scien- 
tific method  than  his  critics,  when  he  thus  hinted  at 
the  possibility  of  entertaining  a  belief  not  amenable  to 
scientific  tests.  The  hypothesis  of  a  purely  spiritual 
unseen  world,  as  above  described,  is  entirely  removed 
from  the  jurisdiction  of  physical  inquiry,  and  can  only 
be  judged  on  general  considerations  of  what  has  been 
called  "  moral  probability  " ;  and  considerations  of  this 


THE   UNSEEN  WORLD. 


55 


sort  are  likely,  in  the  future  as  in  the  past,  to  possess 
different  values  for  different  minds.  He  who,  on  such 
considerations,  entertains  a  belief  in  a  future  life  may 
not  demand  that  his  sceptical  neighbour  shall  be  con- 
vinced by  the  same  considerations ;  but  his  neighbour 
is  at  the  same  time  estopped  from  stigmatizing  his  be- 
lief as  unphilosophical. 

The  consideration  which  must  influence  most  minds 
in  their  attitude  toward  this  question,  is  the  craving, 
almost  universally  felt,  for  some  teleological  solution  to 
the  problem  of  existence.  Why  we  are  here  now  is  a 
question  of  even  profounder  interest  than  whether  we 
are  to  live  hereafter.  Unfortunately  its  solution  carries 
us  no  less  completely  beyond  the  range  of  experience. 
The  belief  that  all  things  are  working  together  for  some 
good  end  is  the  most  essential  expression  of  religious 
faith :  of  all  intellectual  propositions  it  is  the  one  most 
closely  related  to  that  emotional  yearning  for  a  higher 
and  better  life  which  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  re- 
ligion. Yet  all  the  treatises  on  natural  theology  that 
have  ever  been  written  have  barely  succeeded  in  estab- 
lishing a  low  degree  of  scientific  probability  for  this 
belief.  In  spite  of  the  eight  Bridgewater  Treatises,  and 
the  "Ninth"  beside,  dysteleology  still  holds  full  half 
the  field  as  against  teleology.  Most  of  this  difficulty, 
however,  results  from  the  crude  anthropomorphic  views 
which  theologians  have  held  concerning  God.  Once 
admitting  that  the  Divine  attributes  may  be  (as  they 
must  be)  incommensurably  greater  than  human  attri- 
butes, our  faith  that  all  things  are  working  together  for 
good  may  remain  unimpugned. 

To  many  minds  such  a  faith  will  seem  incompatible 
with  belief  in  the  ultimate  destruction  of  sentiency  amid 
the  general  doom  of  the  material  universe..  A  good  end 


56  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

can  have  no  meaning  to  us  save  in  relation  to  conscious- 
ness that  distinguishes  and  knows  the  good  from  the 
evil.  There  could  be  no  better  illustration  of  how  we 
are  hemmed  in  than  the  very  inadequacy  of  the  words 
with  which  we  try  to  discuss  this  subject.  Such  words 
have  all  gained  their  meanings  from  human  experience, 
and  hence  of  necessity  carry  anthropomorphic  implica- 
tions. But  we  cannot  help  this.  We  must  think  with 
the  symbols  with  which  experience  has  furnished  us; 
and  when  we  so  think,  there  does  seem  to  be  little  that 
is  even  intellectually  satisfying  in  the  awful  picture 
which  science  shows  us,  of  giant  worlds  concentrating 
out  of  nebulous  vapour,  developing  with  prodigious 
waste  of  energy  into  theatres  of  all  that  is  grand  and 
sacred  in  spiritual  endeavour,  clashing  and  exploding 
again  into  dead  vapour-balls,  only  to  renew  the  same 
toilful  process  without  end,  —  a  senseless  bubble-play 
of  Titan  forces,  with  life,  love,  and  aspiration  brought 
forth  only  to  be  extinguished.  The  human  mind,  how- 
ever "  scientific  "  its  training,  must  often  recoil  from  the 
conclusion  that  this  is  all ;  and  there  are  moments  when 
one  passionately  feels  that  this  cannot  be  all.  On 
warm  June  mornings  in  green  country  lanes,  with  sweet 
pine-odours  wafted  in  the  breeze  which  sighs  through 
the  branches,  and  cloud-shadows  flitting  over  far-off 
blue  mountains,  while  little  birds  sing  their  love-songs, 
and  golden-haired  children  weave  garlands  of  wild  roses; 
or  when  in  the  solemn  twilight  we  listen  to  wondrous 
harmonies  of  Beethoven  and  Chopin  that  stir  the  heart 
like  voices  from  an  unseen  world;  at  such  times  one 
feels  that  the  profoundest  answer  which  science  can 
give  to  our  questionings  is  but  a  superficial  answer  after 
all.  At  these  moments,  when  the  world  seems  fullest 
of  beauty,  one  feels  most  strongly  that  it  is  but  the  har- 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.  57 

binger  of  something  else,  —  that  the  ceaseless  play  of 
phenomena  is  no  mere  sport  of  Titans,  but  an  orderly 
scene,  with  its  reason  for  existing,  its 

"One  divine  far-off  event 
To  which,  the  whole  creation  moves." 

Difficult  as  it  is  to  disentangle  the  elements  of  rea- 
soning that  enter  into  these  complex  groups  of  feeling, 
one  may  still  see,  I  think,  that  it  is  speculative  interest 
in  the  world,  rather  than  anxious  interest  in  self,  that 
predominates.  The  desire  for  immortality  in  its  lowest 
phase  is  merely  the  outcome  of  the  repugnance  we  feel 
toward  thinking  of  the  final  cessation  of  vigorous  vital 
activity.  Such  a  feeling  is  naturally  strong  with  healthy 
people.  But  in  the  mood  which  I  have  above  tried  to 
depict,  this  feeling,  or  any  other  which  is  merely  self- 
regarding,  is  lost  sight  of  in  the  feeling  which  associ- 
ates a  future  life  with  some  solution  of  the  burdensome 
problem  of  existence.  Had  we  but  faith  enough  to 
lighten  the  burden  of  this  problem,  the  inferior  question 
would  perhaps  be  less  absorbing.  Could  we  but  know 
that  our  present  lives  are  working  together  toward  some 
good  end,  even  an  end  in  no  wise  anthropomorphic,  it 
would  be  of  less  consequence  whether  we  were  indi- 
vidually to  endure.  To  the  dog  under  the  knife  of  the 
experimenter,  the  world  is  a  world  of  pure  evil;  yet 
could  the  poor  beast  but  understand  the  alleviation  of 
human  suffering  to  which  he  is  contributing,  he  would  be 
forced  to  own  that  this  is  not  quite  true ;  and  if  he  were 
also  a  heroic  or  Christian  dog,  the  thought  would  per- 
haps take  away  from  death  its  sting.  The  analogy  may 
be  a  crude  one;  but  the  reasonableness  of  the  universe 
is  at  least  as  far  above  our  comprehension  as  the  pur- 
poses of  man  surpass  the  understanding  of  the  dog. 

3» 


58  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 

Believing,  however,  though  as  a  simple  act  of  trust,  that 
the  end  will  crown  the  work,  we  may  rise  superior  to 
the  question  which  has  here  concerned  us,  and  exclaim, 
in  the  supreme  language  of  faith,  "  Though  He  slay  me, 
yet  will  I  trust  in  Him ! " 


July,  1875. 

tD/j  Q 
i  \f 


II. 

"THE  TO-MOEEOW  OF  DEATH." 

FEW  of  those  who  find  pleasure  in  frequenting  book- 
stores can  have  failed  to  come  across  one  or  more 
of  the  profusely  illustrated  volumes  in  which  M.  Louis 
Figuier  has  sought  to  render  dry  science  entertaining  to 
the  multitude.  And  of  those  who  may  have  casually 
turned  over  their  pages,  there  are  probably  none,  com- 
petent to  form  an  opinion,  who  have  not  speedily  per- 
ceived that  these  pretentious  books  belong  to  the  class 
of  pests  and  unmitigated  nuisances  in  literature.  An- 
tiquated views,  utter  lack  of  comprehension  of  the  sub- 
jects treated,  and  shameless  uuscrupulousness  as  to 
accuracy  of  statement,  are  faults  but  ill  atoned  for  by 
sensational  pictures  of  the  "  dragons  of  the  prime  that 
tare  each  other  in  their  slime,"  or  of  the  Newton-like 
brow  and  silken  curls  of  that  primitive  man  in  contrast 
with  whom  the  said  dragons  have  been  likened  to  "  mel- 
low music." 

Nevertheless,  the  sort  of  scientific  reputation  which 
these  discreditable  performances  have  gained  for  M. 
Figuier  among  an  uncritical  public  is  such  as  to  justify 
us  in  devoting  a  few  paragraphs  to  a  book  *  which,  on 
its  own  merits,  is  unworthy  of  any  notice  whatever. 
"  The  To-morrow  of  Death "  —  if  one  were  to  put  his 

*  The  To-morrow  of  Death ;  or,  The  Future  Life  according  to  Sci- 
ence. By  Louis  Figuier.  Translated  from  the  French  by  S.  R.  Crocker. 
Boston  :  Roberts  Brothers.  1872. 


60  "THE  TO-MORROW  OF  DEATH." 

trust  in  the  translator's  prefatory  note  —  discusses  a 
grave  question  upon  "  purely  scientific  methods."  We 
are  glad  to  see  this  remark,  because  it  shows  what 
notions  may  be  entertained  by  persons  of  average  intel- 
ligence with  reference  to  "scientific  methods."  Those 
—  and  they  are  many  —  who  vaguely  think  that  sci- 
ence is  something  different  from  common-sense,  and 
that  any  book  is  scientific  which  talks  about  perihelia 
and  asymptotes  and  cetacea,  will  find  their  vague  notions 
here  well  corroborated.  Quite  different  will  be  the  im- 
pression made  upon  those  —  and  they  are  yet  too  few  — 
who  have  learned  that  the  method  of  science  is  the 
common-sense  method  of  cautiously  weighing  evidence 
and  withholding  judgment  where  evidence  is  not  forth- 
coming. If  talking  about  remote  and  difficult  subjects 
suffice  to  make  one  scientific,  then  is  M.  Figuier  scien- 
tific to  a  quite  terrible  degree.  He  writes  about  the 
starry  heavens  as  if  he  had  been  present  at  the  hour 
of  creation,  or  had  at  least  accompanied  the  Arabian 
prophet  on  his  famous  night-journey.  Nor  is  his  knowl- 
edge of  physiology  and  other  abstruse  sciences  at  all 
less  remarkable.  But  these  things  will  cease  to  surprise 
us  when  we  learn  the  sources,  hitherto  suspected  only 
in  mythology,  from  which  favoured  mortals  can  obtain  a 
knowledge  of  what  is  going  on  outside  of  our  planet. 

The  four  inner  planets  being  nearly  alike  in  size  (?) 
and  in  length  of  day,  M.  Figuier  infers,  by  strictly  scien- 
tific methods,  that  whatever  is  true  of  one  of  them,  as 
our  earth,  will  be  true  of  the  others  (p.  34).  Hence, 
they  are  all  inhabited  by  human  beings.  It  is  true  that 
human  beings  must  find  Venus  rather  warm,  and  are 
not  unlikely  to  be  seriously  incommoded  by  the  tropical 
climate  of  Mercury.  But  we  must  remember  that  "  the 
men  of  Venus  and  Mercury  are  made  by  nature  to  resist 


"THE  TO-MORROW  OF  DEATH."  6t 

heat,  as  those  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn  are  made  to  endure 
cold,  and  those  of  the  Earth  and  Mars  to  live  in  a  mean 
temperature  :  otherwise  they  could  not  exist "  (p.  72).  In 
view  of  this  charming  specimen  of  a  truly  scientific  in- 
ference, it  is  almost  too  bad  to  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  M.  Figuier  is  quite  behind  the  age  in  his  statement 
of  facts.  So  far  from  Jupiter  and  Saturn  being  cold, 
observation  plainly  indicates  that  they  are  prodigiously 
hot,  if  not  even  incandescent  and  partly  self-luminous ; 
the  explanation  being  that,  by  reason  of  their  huge 
bulk,  they  still  retain  much  of  the  primitive  heat  which 
smaller  planets  have  more  quickly  radiated  away.  As 
for  M.  Figuier's  statement,  that  polar  snows  have  been 
witnessed  on  these  planets,  it  is  simply  untrue ;  no  such 
thing  has  ever  been  seen  there.  Mars,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  been  observed  to  resemble  in  many  important 
respects  its  near  neighbour,  the  Earth;  whence  our 
author  declares  that  if  an  aeronaut  were  to  shoot  clear 
of  terrestrial  gravitation  and  land  upon  Mars,  he  would 
unquestionably  suppose  himself  to  be  still  upon  the 
earth.  For  aerolites,  it  seems,  are  somehow  fired  down 
upon  our  planet  both  from  Mars  and  from  Venus ;  and 
aerolites  sometimes  contain  vegetable  matter  (?).  There- 
fore, Mars  has  a  vegetation,  and  very  likely  its  red  colour 
is  caused  by  its  luxuriant  autumnal  foliage  !  (p.  47.)  To 
return  to  Jupiter:  this  planet,  indeed,  has  inconven- 
iently short  days.  "In  his  'Picture  of  the  Heavens/ 
the  German  astronomer,  Littrow  (these  Germans  think 
of  nothing  but  gormandizing],  asks  how  the  people  of 
Jupiter  order  their  meals  in  the  short  interval  of  five 
hours."  Nevertheless,  says  our  author,  the  great  planet 
is  compensated  for  this  inconvenience  by  its  equable 
and  delicious  climate. 

In  view,  however,  of  our  author's  more .  striking  and 


62  "THE   TO-MORROW  OF  DEATH." 

original  disclosures,  one  would  suppose  that  all  this  dis- 
cussion of  the  physical  conditions  of  existence  on  the 
various  planets  might  have  been  passed  over  without 
detriment  to  the  argument.  After  these  efforts  at  prov- 
ing (for  M.  Figuier  presumably  regards  this  rigmarole  as 
proof)  that  all  the  members  of  our  solar  system  are  hab- 
itable, the  interplanetary  ether  is  forthwith  peopled 
thickly  with  "  souls,"  without  any  resort  to  argument. 
This,  we  suppose,  is  one  of  those  scientific  truths  which, 
as  M.  Figuier  tells  us,  precede  and  underlie  demonstra- 
tion. Upon  this  impregnable  basis  is  reared  the  scien- 
tific theory  of  a  future  life.  When  we  die  our  soul 
passes  into  some  other  terrestrial  body,  unless  we  have 
been  very  good,  in  which  case  we  at  once  soar  aloft  and 
join  the  noble  fraternity  of  the  ether-folk.  Bad  men 
and  young  children,  on  dying,  must  undergo  renewed 
probation  here  below,  but  ultimately  all  pass  away  into 
the  interplanetary  ether.  The  dweller  in  ether  is  chiefly 
distinguished  from  the  mundane  mortal  by  his  acute 
senses  and  his  ability  to  subsist  without  food.  He  can 
see  as  if  through  a  telescope  and  microscope  combined. 
His  intelligence  is  so  great  that  in  comparison  an  Aris- 
totle would  seem  idiotic.  It  should  not  be  forgotten, 
too,  that  he  possesses  eighty-five  per  cent  of  soul  to  fif- 
teen per  cent  of  body,  whereas  in  terrestrial  man  the 
two  elements  are  mixed  in  equal  proportions.  There  is 
no  sex  among  the  ether-folk,  their  numbers  being  kept 
up  by  the  influx  of  souls  from  the  various  planets. 
"Alimentation,  that  necessity  which  tyrannizes  over 
men  and  animals,  is  not  imposed  upon  the  inhabitants 
of  ether.  Their  bodies  must  be  repaired  and  sustained 
by  the  simple  respiration  of  the  fluid  in  which  they  are 
immersed,  that  is,  of  ether."  Most  likely,  continues  our 
scientific  author,  the  physiological  functions  of  the  ether- 


"THE  TO-MORROW  OF  DEATH."  63 

folk  are  confined  to  respiration,  and  that  it  is  possible  to 
breathe  "  without  numerous  organs  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  in  all  of  a  whole  class  of  animals  —  the  batrachians 
—  the  mere  bare  skin  constitutes  the  whole  machinery  of 
respiration"  (p.  95).  Allowing  for  the  unfortunate  slip 
of  the  pen  by  which  "  batrachians  "  are  substituted  for 
"  fresh-water  polyps,"  how  can  we  fail  to  admire  the 
severity  of  the  scientific  method  employed  in  reaching 
these  interesting  conclusions  ? 

But  the  King  of  Serendib  must  die,  nor  will  the 
relentless  scythe  of  Time  spare  our  Etherians,  with  all 
their  exalted  attributes.  They  will  die  repeatedly;  and 
after  having  through  sundry  periods  of  probation  at- 
tained spiritual  perfection,  they  will  all  pour  into  the 
sun.  Since  it  is  the  sun  which  originates  life  and  feel- 
ing and  thought  upon  the  surface  of  our  earth,  "  why 
may  we  not  declare  that  the  rays  transmitted  by  the 
sun  to  the  earth  and  the  other  planets  are  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  the  emanations  of  these  souls  ? "  And 
now  we  may  begin  to  form  an  adequate  conception  of 
the  rigorously  scientific  character  of  our  author's  method. 
There  have  been  many  hypotheses  by  which  to  account 
for  the  supply  of  solar  radiance.  One  of  the  most  in- 
genious and  probable  of  these  hypotheses  is  that  of 
Helmholtz,  according  to  which  the  solar  radiance  is  due 
to  the  arrested  motion  of  the  sun's  constituent  particles 
toward  their  common  centre  of  gravity.  But  this  is  too 
fanciful  to  satisfy  M.  Figuier.  The  speculations  of 
Helmholtz  "have  the  disadvantage  of  resting  on  the 
idea  of  the  sun's  nebulosity,  —  an  hypothesis  which 
would  need  to  be  more  closely  examined  before  serving 
as  a  basis  for  so  important  a  deduction."  Accordingly, 
M.  Figuier  propounds  an  explanation  which  possesses 
the  signal  advantage  that  there  is  nothing  hypothetical 


64  "THE  TO-MORROW  OF  DEATH." 

in  it.  "  In  our  opinion,  the  solar  radiation  is  sustained 
by  the  continual  influx  of  souls  into  the  sun."  This,  as 
the  reader  will  perceive,  is  the  well-known  theory  of 
Mayer,  that  the  solar  heat  is  due  to  a  perennial  bom- 
bardment of  the  sun  by  meteors,  save  that,  in  place 
of  gross  materialistic  meteors,  M.  Figuier  puts  ethereal 
souls.  The  ether-folk  are  daily  raining  into  the  solar 
orb  in  untold  millions,  and  to  the  unceasing  concussion 
is  due  the  radiation  which  maintains  life  in  the  planets, 
and  thus  the  circle  is  complete. 

In  spite  of  their  exalted  position,  the  ether-folk  do 
not  disdain  to  mingle  with  the  affairs  of  terrestrial  mor- 
tals. They  give  us  counsel  in  dreams,  and  it  is  from 
this  source,  we  presume,  that  our  author  has  derived  his 
rigid  notions  as  to  scientific  method.  In  evidence  of 
this  dream-theory  we  have  the  usual  array  of  cases,  "  a 

celebrated  journalist,  M.  E ,"  "  M.  L ,  a  lawyer," 

etc.,  etc.,  as  in  most  books  of  this  kind. 

M.  Figuier  is  not  a  Darwinian :  the  derivation  of  our 
bodies  from  the  bodies  of  apes  is  a  conception  too  grossly 
materialistic  for  him.  Our  souls,  however,  he  is  quite 
willing  to  derive  from  the  souls  of  lower  animals.  Ob- 
viously we  have  pre-existed ;  how  are  we  to  account  for 
Mozart's  precocity  save  by  supposing  his  pre-existence  ? 
He  brought  with  him  the  musical  skill  acquired  in  a  pre- 
vious life.  In  general,  the  souls  of  musical  children 
come  from  nightingales,  while  the  souls  of  great  archi- 
tects have  passed  into  them  from  beavers  (p.  247).  We 
do  not  remember  these  past  existences,  it  is  true ;  but 
when  we  become  ether-folk,  we  shall  be  able  to  look 
back  in  recollection  over  the  whole  series. 

Amid  these  sublime  inquiries,  M.  Figuier  is  some- 
times notably  oblivious  of  humbler  truths,  as  might  in- 
deed be  expected.  Thus  he  repeatedly  alludes  to  Locke 


"THE   TO-MORROW  OF  DEATH."  6$ 

as  the  author  of  the  doctrine  of  innate  ideas  (!  !),* 
and  he  informs  us  that  Kepler  never  quitted  Protestant 
England  (p.  335),  though  we  believe  that  the  nearest 
Kepler  ever  came  to  living  in  England  was  the  refusing 
of  Sir  Henry  Wotton's  request  that  he  should  move 
thither. 

And  lastly,  we  are  treated  to  a  real  dialogue,  with 
quite  a  dramatic  mise  en  scene.  The  author's  imaginary 
friend,  Theophilus,  enters,  "  seats  himself  in  a  comfort- 
able chair,  places  an  ottoman  under  his  feet,  a  book  un- 
der his  elbow  to  support  it,  and  a  cigarette  of  Turkish 
tobacco  between  his  lips,  and  sets  himself  to  the  task  of 
listening  with  a  grave  air  of  collectedness,  relieved  by  a 
certain  touch  of  suspicious  severity,  as  becomes  the  arbi- 
ter in  a  literary  and  philosophic  matter."  "And  so," 
begins  our  author,  "  you  wish  to  know,  my  dear  The- 
ophilus, where  I  locate  God  ?  I  locate  him  in  the  centre 
of  the  universe,  or,  in  better  phrase,  at  the  central  focus, 
which  must  exist  somewhere,  of  all  the  stars  that  make 
the  universe,  and  which,  borne  onward  in  a  common 
movement,  gravitate  together  around  this  focus." 

Much  more,  of  an  equally  scientific  character,  follows ; 
but  in  fairness  to  the  reader,  who  is  already  blaming  us 
for  wasting  the  precious  moments  over  such  sorry  trash, 
we  may  as  well  conclude  our  sketch  of  this  new  line  of 
speculation. 

*  Pages  251,  252,  287.  So  in  the  twenty-first  century  some  avatar  of 
M.  Figuier  will  perhaps  describe  the  late  Professor  Agassiz  as  the  au- 
thor of  the  Darwinian  theory. 

May,  1872. 


III. 

THE  JESUS   OF   HISTOKY* 

OF  all  the  great  founders  of  religions,  Jesus  is  at 
once  the  best  known  and  the  least  known  to  the 
modern  scholar.  From  the  dogmatic  point  of  view  he 
is  the  best  known,  from  the  historic  point  of  view  he 
is  the  least  known.  The  Christ  of  dogma  is  in  every 
lineament  familiar  to  us  from  early  childhood ;  but  con- 
cerning the  Jesus  of  history  we  possess  but  few  facts 
resting  upon  trustworthy  evidence,  and  in  order  to  form 
a  picture  of  him  at  once  consistent,  probable,  and  dis- 
tinct in  its  outlines,  it  is  necessary  to  enter  upon  a  long 
and  difficult  investigation,  in  the  course  of  which  some 

*  The  Jesus  of  History.  Anonymous.  8vo.  pp.  426.  London  : 
"Williams  &  Norgate,  1869. 

Vie  de  Jesus,  par  Ernest  Eenan.  Paris,  1867.  (Thirteenth  edition, 
revised  and  partly  rewritten. ) 

In  republishing  this  and  the  following  article  on  "The  Christ  of 
Dogma,"  I  am  aware  that  they  do  but  scanty  justice  to  their  very  in- 
teresting subjects.  So  much  ground  is  covered  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  treat  it  satisfactorily  in  a  pair  of  review-articles  ;  and  in  par- 
ticular the  views  adopted  with  regard  to  the  New  Testament  literature 
are  rather  indicated  than  justified.  These  defects  I  hope  to  remedy  in  a 
future  work  on  "Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  the  Founding  of  Christianity," 
for  which  the  present  articles  must  be  regarded  as  furnishing  only  a  few 
introductory  hints.  This  work  has  been  for  several  years  on  my  mind, 
but  as  it  may  still  be  long  before  I  can  find  the  leisure  needful  for 
writing  it  out,  it  seemed  best  to  republish  these  preliminary  sketches 
which  have  been  some  time  out  of  print.  The  projected  work,  however, 
while  covering  all  the  points  here  treated,  will  have  a  much  wider 
scope,  dealing  on  the  one  hand  with  the  natural  genesis  of  the  complex 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  67 

of  the  most  delicate  apparatus  of  modern  criticism  is 
required.  This  circumstance  is  sufficiently  singular  to 
require  especial  explanation.  The  case  of  Sakyamuni, 
the  founder  of  Buddhism,  which  may  perhaps  be  cited 
as  parallel,  is  in  reality  wholly  different.  Not  only  did 
Sakyamuni  live  five  centuries  earlier  than  Jesus,  among 
a  people  that  have  at  no  time  possessed  the  art  of  in- 
suring authenticity  in  their  records  of  events,  and  at  an 
era  which  is  at  best  but  dimly  discerned  through  the 
mists  of  fable  and  legend,  but  the  work  which  he 
achieved  lies  wholly  out  of  the  course  of  European  his- 
tory, and  it  is  only  in  recent  times  that  his  career  has 
presented  itself  to  us  as  a  problem  needing  to  be  solved. 
Jesus,  on  the  other  hand,  appeared  in  an  age  which  is 
familiarly  and  in  many  respects  minutely  known  to  us, 
and  among  a  people  whose  fortunes  we  can  trace  with 
historic  certainty  for  at  least  seven  centuries  previous 
to  his  birth ;  while  his  life  and  achievements  have  prob- 
ably had  a  larger  share  in  directing  the  entire  subse- 
quent intellectual  and  moral  development  of  Europe 

aggregate  of  beliefs  and  aspirations  known  as  Christianity,  and  on  the 
other  hand  with  the  metamorphoses  which  are  being  wrought  in  this 
aggregate  by  modern  knowledge  and  modern  theories  of  the  world. 

The  views  adopted  in  the  present  essay  as  to  the  date  of  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  may  seem  over-conservative  to  those  who  accept  the  ably-argued 
conclusions  of  "Supernatural  Religion."  Quite  possibly  in  a  more  de- 
tailed discussion  these  briefly-indicated  data  may  require  revision  ;  but 
for  the  present  it  seems  best  to  let  the  article  stand  as  it  was  written. 
The  author  of  "Supernatural  Religion "  would  no  doubt  admit  that, 
even  if  the  synoptic  gospels  had  not  assumed  their  present  form  before 
the  end  of  the  second  century,  nevertheless  the  body  of  tradition  con- 
tained in  them  had  been  committed  to  writing  very  early  in  that  cen- 
tury. So  much  appears  to  be  proved  by  the  very  variations  of  text 
upon  which  his  argument  relies.  And  if  this  be  granted,  the  value  of 
the  synoptics  as  historical  evidence  is  not  materially  altered.  With 
their  value  as  testimony  to  so-called  supernatural  events,  the  present 
essay  is  in  no  way  concerned. 


68  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

than  those  of  any  other  man  who  has  ever  lived.  Nev- 
ertheless, the  details  of  his  personal  career  are  shrouded 
in  an  obscurity  almost  as  dense  as  that  which  envelops 
the  life  of  the  remote  founder  of  Buddhism. 

This  phenomenon,  however,  appears  less  strange  and 
paradoxical  when  we  come  to  examine  it  more  closely. 
A  little  reflection  will  disclose  to  us  several  good  rea- 
sons why  the  historical  records  of  the  life  of  Jesus 
should  be  so  scanty  as  they  are.  In  the  first  place,  the 
activity  of  Jesus  was  private  rather  than  public.  Con- 
fined within  exceedingly  narrow  limits,  both  of  space 
and  of  duration,  it  made  no  impression  whatever  upon 
the  politics  or  the  literature  of  the  time.  His  name 
does  not  occur  in  the  pages  of  any  contemporary  writer, 
Roman,  Greek,  or  Jewish.  Doubtless  the  case  would 
have  been  wholly  different,  had  he,  like  Mohammed, 
lived  to  a  ripe  age,  and  had  the  exigencies  of  his  pecu- 
liar position  as  the  Messiah  of  the  Jewish  people  brought 
him  into  relations  with  the  Empire ;  though  whether,  in 
such  case,  the  success  of  his  grand  undertaking  would 
have  been  as  complete  as  it  has  actually  been,  may  well 
be  doubted. 

Secondly,  Jesus  did  not,  like  Mohammed  and  Paul, 
leave  behind  him  authentic  writings  which  might  serve 
to  throw  light  upon  his  mental  development  as  well  as 
upon  the  external  facts  of  his  career.  Without  the  Ko- 
ran and  the  four  genuine  Epistles  of  Paul,  we  should  be 
nearly  as  much  in  the  dark  concerning  these  great  men 
as  we  now  are  concerning  the  historical  Jesus.  We 
should  be  compelled  to  rely,  in  the  one  case,  upon  the 
untrustworthy  gossip  of  Mussulman  chroniclers,  and  in 
the  other  case  upon  the  garbled  statements  of  the  "Acts 
of  the  Apostles,"  a  book  written  with  a  distinct  dog- 
matic purpose,  sixty  or  seventy  years  after  the  occur- 
rence of  the  events  which  it  professes  to  record. 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 


69 


It  is  true,  many  of  the  words  of  Jesus,  preserved  by 
hearsay  tradition  through  the  generation  immediately 
succeeding  his  death,  have  come  down  to  us,  probably 
with  little  alteration,  in  the  pages  of  the  three  earlier 
evangelists.  These  are  priceless  data,  since,  as  we  shall 
see,  they  are  almost  the  only  materials  at  our  command 
for  forming  even  a  partial  conception  of  the  character 
of  Jesus'  work.  Nevertheless,  even  here  the  cautious 
inquirer  has  only  too  often  to  pause  in  face  of  the  diffi- 
culty of  distinguishing  the  authentic  utterances  of  the 
great  teacher  from  the  later  interpolations  suggested  by 
the  dogmatic  necessities  of  the  narrators.  Bitterly  must 
the  historian  regret  that  Jesus  had  no  philosophic  dis- 
ciple, like  Xenophon,  to  record  his  Memorabilia.  Of 
the  various  writings  included  in  the  New  Testament, 
the  Apocalypse  alone  (and  possibly  the  Epistle  of  Jude) 
is  from  the  pen  of  a  personal  acquaintance  of  Jesus; 
and  besides  this,  the  four  epistles  of  Paul,  to  the  Gala- 
tians,  Corinthians,  and  Romans,  make  up  the  sum  of  the 
writings  from  which  we  may  expect  contemporary  tes- 
timony. Yet  from  these  we  obtain  absolutely  nothing 
of  that  for  which  we  are  seeking.  The  brief  writings  of 
Paul  are  occupied  exclusively  with  the  internal  signifi- 
cance of  Jesus'  work.  The  epistle  of  Jude  —  if  it  be 
really  written  by  Jesus'  brother  of  that  name,  which  is 
doubtful  —  is  solely  a  polemic  directed  against  the  in- 
novations of  Paul.  And  the  Apocalypse,  the  work  of 
the  fiery  and  imaginative  disciple  John,  is  confined  to  a 
prophetic  description  of  the  Messiah's  anticipated  re- 
turn, and  tells  us  nothing  concerning  the  deeds  of  that 
Messiah  while  on  the  earth. 

Here  we  touch  upon  our  third  consideration,  —  the 
consideration  which  best  enables  us  to  see  why  the  his- 
toric notices  of  Jesus  are  so  meagre.  Rightly  consid- 


70  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

ered,  the  statement  with  which  we  opened  this  article 
is  its  own  explanation.  The  Jesus  of  history  is  so  little 
known  just  because  the  Christ  of  dogma  is  so  well 
known.*  Other  teachers  —  Paul,  Mohammed,  Saky- 
amuni  —  have  come  merely  as  preachers  of  righteous- 
ness, speaking  in  the  name  of  general  principles  with 
which  their  own  personalities  were  not  directly  impli- 
cated. But  Jesus,  as  we  shall  see,  before  the  close  of 
his  life,  proclaimed  himself  to  be  something  more  than 
a  preacher  of  righteousness.  He  announced  himself — 
and  justly,  from  his  own  point  of  view  —  as  the  long- 
expected  Messiah  sent  by  Jehovah  to  liberate  the  Jew- 
ish race.  Thus  the  success  of  his  religious  teachings 
became  at  once  implicated  with  the  question  of  his  per- 
sonal nature  and  character.  After  the  sudden  and  vio- 
lent termination  of  his  career,  it  immediately  became 
all-important  with  his  followers  to  prove  that  he  was 
really  the  Messiah,  and  to  insist  upon  the  certainty  of 
his  speedy  return  to  the  earth.  Thus  the  first  genera- 
tion of  disciples  dogmatized  about  him,  instead  of  nar- 
rating his  life,  —  a  task  which  to  them  would  have 
seemed  of  little  profit.  For  them  the  all-absorbing  ob- 
ject of  contemplation  was  the  immediate  future  rather 
than  the  immediate  past.  As  all  the  earlier  Christian 
literature  informs  us,  for  nearly  a  century  after  the  death 
of  Jesus,  his  followers  lived  in  daily  anticipation  of  his 
triumphant  return  to  the  earth.  The  end  of  all  things 
being  so  near  at  hand,  no  attempt  was  made  to  insure 
accurate  and  complete  memoirs  for  the  use  of  a  pos- 
terity which  was  destined,  in  Christian  imagination, 
never  to  arrive.  The  first  Christians  wrote  but  little ; 

*  "  Wer  einmal  vergottert  worden  ist,  der  hat  seine  Menschheit  un- 
wiederbringlich  eingebiisst."  —  Strauss,  Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glaube, 
p.  76. 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  7! 

even  Papias,  at  the  end  of  a  century,  preferring  second- 
hand or  third-hand  oral  tradition  to  the  written  gospels 
which  were  then  beginning  to  come  into  circulation.* 
Memoirs  of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  were  called 
forth  by  the  necessity  of  having  a  written  standard  of 
doctrine  to  which  to  appeal  amid  the  growing  differ- 
ences of  opinion  which  disturbed  the  Church.  Thus  the 
earlier  gospels  exhibit,  though  in  different  degrees,  the 
indications  of  a  modifying,  sometimes  of  an  overruling 
dogmatic  purpose.  There  is,  indeed,  no  conscious  vio- 
lation of  historic  truth,  but  from  the  varied  mass  of 
material  supplied  by  tradition,  such  incidents  are  se- 
lected as  are  fit  to  support  the  views  of  the  writers  con- 
cerning the  personality  of  Jesus.  Accordingly,  while 
the  early  gospels  throw  a  strong  light  upon  the  state  of 
Christian  opinion  at  the  dates  when  they  were  succes- 
sively composed,  the  information  which  they  give  con- 
cerning Jesus  himself  is,  for  that  very  reason,  often 
vague,  uncritical,  and  contradictory.  Still  more  is  this 
true  of  the  fourth  gospel,  written  late  in  the  second 
century,  in  which  historic  tradition  is  moulded  in  the 
interests  of  dogma  until  it  becomes  no  longer  recog- 
nizable, and  in  the  place  of  the  human  Messiah  of  the 
earlier  accounts,  we  have  a  semi-divine  Logos  or  ^Eon, 
detached  from  God,  and  incarnate  for  a  brief  season  in 
the  likeness  of  man. 

Not  only  was  history  subordinated  to  dogma  by  the 
writers  of  the  gospel-narratives,  but  in  the  minds  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church  who  assisted  in  determining  what 

*  "  Pioger  was  the  attendant  of  Thomas  [Becket]  during  his  sojourn 
at  Pontigny.  We  might  have  expected  him  to  be  very  full  on  that  part 
of  his  history  ;  but,  writing  doubtless  mainly  for  the  monks  of  Pontigny, 
he  says  that  he  will  not  enlarge  upon  what  every  one  knows,  and  cuts 
that  part  very  short."  —  Freeman,  Historical  Essays,  1st  series,  p.  90. 


72  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

writings  should  be  considered  canonical,  dogmatic  pre- 
possession went  very  much  further  than  critical  acumen. 
Nor  is  this  strange  when  we  reflect  that  critical  dis- 
crimination in  questions  of  literary  authenticity  is  one 
of  the  latest  acquisitions  of  the  cultivated  human  mind. 
In  the  early  ages  of  the  Church  the  evidence  of  the 
genuineness  of  any  literary  production  was  never  weighed 
critically ;  writings  containing  doctrines  acceptable  to 
the  majority  of  Christians  were  quoted  as  authoritative, 
while  writings  which  supplied  no  dogmatic  want  were 
overlooked,  or  perhaps  condemned  as  apocryphal.  A 
striking  instance  of  this  is  furnished  by  the  fortunes  of 
the  Apocalypse.  Although  perhaps  the  best  authenti- 
cated work  in  the  New  Testament  collection,  its  mille- 
narian  doctrines  caused  it  to  become  unpopular  as  the 
Church  gradually  ceased  to  look  for  the  speedy  return 
of  the  Messiah,  and,  accordingly,  as  the  canon  assumed 
a  definite  shape,  it  was  placed  among  the  "Antilego- 
mena,"  or  doubtful  books,  and  continued  to  hold  a  pre- 
carious position  until  after  the  time  of  the  Protestant 
Eeformation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fourth  gospel, 
which  was  quite  unknown  and  probably  did  not  exist 
at  the  time  of  the  Quartodeciman  controversy  (A.  D. 
168),  was  accepted  with  little  hesitation,  and  at  the 
beginning  of  the  third  century  is  mentioned  by  Irenaeus, 
Clement,  and  Tertullian,  as  the  work  of  the  Apostle 
John.  To  this  uncritical  spirit,  leading  to  the  neglect 
of  such  books  as  failed  to  answer  the  dogmatic  require- 
ments of  the  Church,  may  probably  be  attributed  the 
loss  of  so  many  of  the  earlier  gospels.  It  is  doubtless 
for  this  reason  that  we  do  not  possess  the  Aramasan 
original  of  the  "  Logia  "  of  Matthew,  or  the  "  Memora- 
bilia "  of  Mark,  the  companion  of  Peter,  —  two  works  to 
which  Papias  (A.  D.  120)  alludes  as  containing  authen- 
tic reports  of  the  utterances  of  Jesus. 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 


73 


These  considerations  will,  we  believe,  sufficiently  ex- 
plain the  curious  circumstance  that,  while  we  know  the 
Christ  of  dogma  so  intimately,  we  know  the  Jesus  of 
history  so  slightly.  The  literature  of  early  Christian- 
ity enables  us  to  trace  with  tolerable  completeness  the 
progress  of  opinion  concerning  the  nature  of  Jesus,  from 
the  time  of  Paul's  early  missions  to  the  time  of  the  Ni- 
cene  Council ;  but  upon  the  actual  words  and  deeds  of 
Jesus  it  throws  a  very  unsteady  light.  The  dogmatic 
purpose  everywhere  obscures  the  historic  basis. 

This  same  dogmatic  prepossession  which  has  rendered 
the  data  for  a  biography  of  Jesus  so  scanty  and  untrust- 
worthy, has  also  until  comparatively  recent  times  pre- 
vented any  unbiassed  critical  examination  of  such  data 
as  we  actually  possess.  Previous  to  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury any  attempt  to  deal  with  the  life  of  Jesus  upon 
purely  historical  methods  would  have  been  not  only 
contemned  as  irrational,  but  stigmatized  as  impious. 
And  even  in  the  eighteenth  century,  those  writers  who 
had  become  wholly  emancipated  from  ecclesiastic  tra- 
dition were  so  destitute  of  all  historic  sympathy  and  so 
unskilled  in  scientific  methods  of  criticism,  that  they 
utterly  failed  to  comprehend  the  requirements  of  the 
problem.  Their  aims  were  in  the  main  polemic,  not 
historical.  They  thought  more  of  overthrowing  current 
dogmas  than  of  impartially  examining  the  earliest  Chris- 
tian literature  with  a  view  of  eliciting  its  historic  con- 
tents ;  and,  accordingly,  they  accomplished  but  little. 
Two  brilliant  exceptions  must,  however,  be  noticed. 
Spinoza,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  Lessing,  in  the 
eighteenth,  were  men  far  in  advance  of  their  age.  They 
are  the  fathers  of  modern  historical  criticism ;  and  to 
Lessing  in  particular,  with  his  enormous  erudition  and 
incomparable  sagacity,  belongs  the  honour  of  initiating 

4 


74 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 


that  method  of  inquiry  which,  in  the  hands  of  the  so- 
called  Tubingen  School,  has  led  to  such  striking  and 
valuable  conclusions  concerning  the  age  and  character 
of  all  the  New  Testament  literature.  But  it  was  long 
before  any  one  could  be  found  fit  to  bend  the  bow  which 
Lessiug  and  Spinoza  had  wielded.  A  succession  of  able 
scholars  —  Semler,  Eichhorn,  Paulus,  Schleiermacher, 
Bretschneider,  and  De  Wette  —  were  required  to  ex- 
amine, with  German  patience  and  accuracy,  the  details 
of  the  subject,  and  to  propound  various  untenable  hy- 
potheses, before  such  a  work  could  be  performed  as  that 
of  Strauss.  The  "  Life  of  Jesus,"  published  by  Strauss 
when  only  twenty-six  years  of  age,  is  one  of  the  monu- 
mental works  of  the  nineteenth  century,  worthy  to  rank, 
as  a  historical  effort,  along  with  such  books  as  Niebuhr's 
"History  of  Rome,"  Wolf's  "Prolegomena,"  or  Bentley's 
"Dissertations  on  Phalaris."  It  instantly  superseded 
and  rendered  antiquated  everything  which  had  preceded 
it ;  nor  has  any  work  on  early  Christianity  been  written 
in  Germany  for  the  past  thirty  years  which  has  not 
been  dominated  by  the  recollection  of  that  marvellous 
book.  Nevertheless,  the  labours  of  another  generation 
of  scholars  have  carried  our  knowledge  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament literature  far  beyond  the  point  which  it  had 
reached  when  Strauss  first  wrote.  At  that  time  the 
dates  of  but  few  of  the  New  Testament  writings  had 
been  fixed  with  any  approach  to  certainty ;  the  age  and 
character  of  the  fourth  gospel,  the  genuineness  of  the 
Pauline  epistles,  even  the  mutual  relations  of  the  three 
synoptics,  were  still  undetermined ;  and,  as  a  natural 
result  of  this  uncertainty,  the  progress  of  dogma  during 
the  first  century  was  ill  understood.  At  the  present 
day  it  is  impossible  to  read  the  early  work  of  Strauss 
without  being  impressed  with  the  necessity  of  obtaining 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  jr 

positive  data  as  to  the  origin  and  dogmatic  character 
of  the  New  Testament  writings,  before  attempting  to 
reach  any  conclusions  as  to  the  probable  career  of  Jesus. 
These  positive  data  we  owe  to  the  genius  and  diligence 
of  the  Tubingen  School,  and,  above  all,  to  its  founder, 
Ferdinand  Christian  Baur.  Beginning  with  the  epis- 
tles of  Paul,  of  which  he  distinguished  four  as  genuine, 
Baur  gradually  worked  his  way  through  the  entire  New 
Testament  collection,  detecting  —  with  that  inspired  in- 
sight which  only  unflinching  diligence  can  impart  to 
original  genius  —  the  age  at  which  each  book  was  writ- 
ten, and  the  circumstances  which  called  it  forth.  To 
give  any  account  of  Baur's  detailed  conclusions,  or  of 
the  method  by  which  he  reached  them,  would  require 
a  volume.  They  are  very  scantily  presented  in  Mr. 
Mackay's  work  on  the  "  Tubingen  School  and  its  Ante- 
cedents," to  which  we  may  refer  the  reader  desirous  of 
further  information.  We  can  here  merely  say  that 
twenty  years  of  energetic  controversy  have  only  served 
to  establish  most  of  Baur's  leading  conclusions  more 
firmly  than  ever.  The  priority  of  the  so-called  gospel 
of  Matthew,  the  Pauline  purpose  of  "  Luke,"  the  second 
in  date  of  our  gospels,  the  derivative  and  second-hand 
character  of  "  Mark,"  and  the  unapostolic  origin  of  the 
fourth  gospel,  are  points  which  may  for  the  future  be 
regarded  as  wellnigh  established  by  circumstantial  evi- 
dence. So  with  respect  to  the  pseudo-Pauline  epistles, 
Baur's  work  was  done  so  thoroughly  that  the  only  ques- 
tion still  left  open  for  much  discussion  is  that  concern- 
ing the  date  and  authorship  of  the  first  and  second 
"  Thessalonians,"  —  a  point  of  quite  inferior  importance, 
so  far  as  our  present  subject  is  concerned.  Seldom  have 
such  vast  results  been  achieved  by  the  labour  of  a  single 
scholar.  Seldom  has  any  historical  critic  possessed  such 


76  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

a  combination  of  analytic  and  of  co-ordinating  powers 
as  Baur.  His  keen  criticism  and  his  wonderful  flashes 
of  insight  exercise  upon  the  reader  a  truly  poetic  effect 
like  that  which  is  felt  in  contemplating  the  marvels  of 
physical  discovery. 

The  comprehensive  labours  of  Baur  were  followed  up 
by  Zeller's  able  work  on  the  "  Acts  of  the  Apostles,"  in 
which  that  book  was  shown  to  have  been  partly  founded 
upon  documents  written  by  Luke,  or  some  other  com- 
panion of  Paul,  and  expanded  and  modified  by  a  much 
later  writer  with  the  purpose  of  covering  up  the  traces 
of  the  early  schism  between  the  Pauline  and  the  Petrine 
sections  of  the  Church.  Along  with  this,  Schwegler's 
work  on  the  "  Post- Apostolic  Times  "  deserves  mention 
as  clearing  up  many  obscure  points  relating  to  the  early 
development  of  dogma.  Finally,  the  "New  Life  of 
Jesus,"  by  Strauss,  adopting  and  utilizing  the  principal 
discoveries  of  Baur  and  his  followers,  and  combining  all 
into  one  grand  historical  picture,  worthily  completes 
the  task  which  the  earlier  work  of  the  same  author  had 
inaugurated. 

The  reader  will  have  noticed  that,  with  the  exception 
of  Spinoza,  every  one  of  the  names  above  cited  in  con- 
nection with  the  literary  analysis  and  criticism  of  the 
New  Testament  is  the  name  of  a  German.  Until  within 
the  last  decade,  Germany  has  indeed  possessed  almost 
an  absolute  monopoly  of  the  science  of  Biblical  criti- 
cism ;  other  countries  having  remained  not  only  unfa- 
miliar with  its  methods,  but  even  grossly  ignorant  of  its 
conspicuous  results,  save  when  some  German  treatise 
of  more  than  ordinary  popularity  has  now  and  then 
been  translated.  But  during  the  past  ten  years  France 
has  entered  the  lists ;  and  the  writings  of  Beville,  Eeuss, 
Nicolas,  D'Eichthal,  Scherer,  and  Colani  testify  to  the 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 


77 


rapidity  with  which  the  German  seed  has  fructified  upon 
her  soil.* 

None  of  these  books,  however,  has  achieved  such 
wide-spread  celebrity,  or  done  so  much  toward  inter- 
esting the  general  public  in  this  class  of  historical  inqui- 
ries, as  the  "Life  of  Jesus,"  by  Eenan.  This  pre-emi- 
nence of  fame  is  partly,  but  not  wholly,  deserved.  From 
a  purely  literary  point  of  view,  Eenan's  work  doubtless 
merits  all  the  celebrity  it  has  gained.  Its  author  writes 
a  style  such  as  is  perhaps  surpassed  by  that  of  no  other 
living  Frenchman.  It  is  by  far  the  most  readable  book 
which  has  ever  been  written  concerning  the  life  of  Jesus. 
And  no  doubt  some  of  its  popularity  is  due  to  its  very 
faults,  which,  from  a  critical  point  of  view,  are  neither 
few  nor  small.  For  Kenan  is  certainly  very  faulty,  as  a 
historical  critic,  when  he  practically  ignores  the  extreme 
meagreness  of  our  positive  knowledge  of  the  career  of 
Jesus,  and  describes  scene  after  scene  in  his  life  as 
minutely  and  with  as  much  confidence  as  if  he  had 
himself  been  present  to  witness  it  all.  Again  and  again 
the  critical  reader  feels  prompted  to  ask,  How  do  you 
know  all  this  ?  or  why,  out  of  two  or  three  conflicting 
accounts,  do  you  quietly  adopt  some  particular  one,  as 
if  its  superior  authority  were  self-evident  ?  But  in  the 
eye  of  the  uncritical  reader,  these  defects  are  excel- 
lences ;  for  it  is  unpleasant  to  be  kept  -in  ignorance 
when  we  are  seeking  after  definite  knowledge,  and  it  is 
disheartening  to  read  page  after  page  of  an  elaborate 
discussion  which  ends  in  convincing  us  that  definite 
knowledge  cannot  be  gained. 

In  the  thirteenth  edition  of  the  "Vie  de  Je'sus,"  Kenan 

*  But  now,  in  annexing  Alsace,  Germany  has  "annexed"  pretty 
much  the  whole  of  this  department  of  French  scholarship,  —  a  curious 
incidental  consequence  of  the  late  war. 


78  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

has  corrected  some  of  the  most  striking  errors  of  the 
original  work,  and  in  particular  has,  with  praiseworthy 
candour,  abandoned  his  untenable  position  with  regard 
to  the  age  and  character  of  the  fourth  gospel.  As  is 
well  known,  Renan,  in  his  earlier  editions,  ascribed  to 
this  gospel  a  historical  value  superior  to  that  of  the 
synoptics,  believing  it  to  have  been  written  by  an  eye- 
witness of  the  events  which  it  relates;  and  from  this 
source,  accordingly,  he  drew  the  larger  share  of  his 
materials.  Now,  if  there  is  any  one  conclusion  con- 
cerning the  New  Testament  literature  which  must  be 
regarded  as  incontrovertibly  established  by  the  labours 
of  a  whole  generation  of  scholars,  it  is  this,  that  the 
fourth  gospel  was  utterly  unknown  until  about  A.  D.  170, 
that  it  was  written  by  some  one  who  possessed  very 
little  direct  knowledge  of  Palestine,  that  its  purpose  was 
rather  to  expound  a  dogma  than  to  give  an  accurate 
record  of  events,  and  that  as  a  guide  to  the  comprehen- 
sion of  the  career  of  Jesus  it  is  of  far  less  value  than 
the  three  synoptic  gospels.  It  is  impossible,  in"  a  brief 
review  like  the  present,  to  epitomize  the  evidence  upon 
which  this  conclusion  rests,  which  may  more  profitably 
be  sought  in  the  Rev.  J.  J.  Tayler's  work  on  "The 
Fourth  Gospel,"  or  in  Davidson's  "  Introduction  to  the 
New  Testament."  It  must  suffice  to  mention  that  this 
gospel  is  not  cited  by  Papias ;  that  Justin,  Marcion,  and 
Valentinus  make  no  allusion  to  it,  though,  since  it  fur- 
nishes so  much  that  is  germane  to  their  views,  they 
would  gladly  have  appealed  to  it,  had  it  been  in  exist- 
ence, when  those  views  were  as  yet  under  discussion; 
and  that,  finally,  in  the  great  Quartodeciman  controversy, 
A.  D.  168,  the  gospel  is  not  only  not  mentioned,  but 
the  authority  of  John  is  cited  by  Polycarp  in  flat  con- 
tradiction of  the  view  afterwards  taken  by  this  evan- 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  79 

gelist.  Still  more,  the  assumption  of  Eenan  led  at  once 
into  complicated  difficulties  with  reference  to  the  Apoca- 
lypse. The  fourth  gospel,  if  it  does  not  unmistakably 
announce  itself  as  the  work  of  John,  at  least  professes 
to  be  Johannine ;  and  it  cannot  for  a  moment  be 
supposed  that  such  a  book,  making  such  claims,  could 
have  gained  currency  during  John's  lifetime  without 
calling  forth  his  indignant  protest.  For,  in  reality,  no 
book  in  the  New  Testament  collection  would  so  com- 
pletely have  shocked  the  prejudices  of  the  Johannine 
party.  John's  own  views  are  well  known  to  us  from 
the  Apocalypse.  John  was  the  most  enthusiastic  of 
millenarians  and  the  most  narrow  and  rigid  of  Juda- 
izers.  In  his  antagonism  to  the  Pauline  innovations  he 
went  farther  than  Peter  himself.  Intense  hatred  of 
Paul  and  his  followers  appears  in  several  passages  of 
the  Apocalypse,  where  they  are  stigmatized  as  "  Nico- 
laitans,"  "  deceivers  of  the  people,"  "  those  who  say  they 
are  apostles  and  are  not,"  "eaters  of  meat  offered  to 
idols,"  "  fornicators,"  "  pretended  Jews,"  "  liars,"  "  syna- 
gogue of  Satan,"  etc.  (Chap.  II.).  On  the  other  hand, 
the  fourth  gospel  contains  nothing  millenarian  or  Ju- 
daical ;  it  carries  Pauline  universalism  to  a  far  greater 
extent  than  Paul  himself  ventured  to  carry  it,  even  con- 
demning the  Jews  as  children  of  darkness,  and  by  im- 
plication contrasting  them  unfavourably  with  the  Gen- 
tiles; and  it  contains  a  theory  of  the  nature  of  Jesus 
which  the  Ebionitish  Christians,  to  whom  John  be- 
longed, rejected  to  the  last. 

In  his  present  edition  Eenan  admits  the  insuperable 
force  of  these  objections,  and  abandons  his  theory  of 
the  apostolic  origin  of  the  fourth  gospel.  And  as  this 
has  necessitated  the  omission  or  alteration  of  all  such 
passages  as  rested  upon  the  authority  of  that  gospel,  the 


g0  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

book  is  to  a  considerable  extent  rewritten,  and  the 
changes  are  such  as  greatly  to  increase  its  value  as  a 
history  of  Jesus.  Nevertheless,  the  author  has  so  long 
been  in  the  habit  of  shaping  his  conceptions  of  the  career 
of  Jesus  by  the  aid  of  the  fourth  gospel,  that  it  has  be- 
come very  difficult  for  him  to  pass  freely  to  another  point 
of  view.  He  still  clings  to  the  hypothesis  that  there  is 
an  element  of  historic  tradition  contained  in  the  book, 
drawn  from  memorial  writings  which  had  perhaps  been 
handed  down  from  John,  and  which  were  inaccessible  to 
the  synoptists.  In  a  very  interesting  appendix,  he  col- 
lects the  evidence  in  favour  of  this  hypothesis,  which 
indeed  is  not  without  plausibility,  since  there  is  every 
reason  for  supposing  that  the  gospel  was  written  at  Ephe- 
sus,  which  a  century  before  had  been  John's  place  of  resi- 
dence. But  even  granting  most  of  Renan's  assumptions, 
it  must  still  follow  that  the  authority  of  this  gospel  is 
far  inferior  to  that  of  the  synoptics,  and  can  in  no  case 
be  very  confidently  appealed  to.  The  question  is  one 
of  the  first  importance  to  the  historian  of  early  Chris- 
tianity. In  inquiring  into  the  life  of  Jesus,  the  very 
first  thing  to  do  is  to  establish  firmly  in  the  mind  the 
true  relations  of  the  fourth  gospel  to  the  first  three. 
Until  this  has  been  done,  no  one  is  competent  to  write 
on  the  subject ;  and  it  is  because  he  has  done  this  so 
imperfectly,  that  Renan's  work  is,  from  a  critical  point 
of  view,  so  imperfectly  successful. 

The  anonymous  work  entitled  "The  Jesus  of  His- 
tory," which  we  have  placed  at  the  head  of  this  article, 
is  in  every  respect  noteworthy  as  the  first  systematic 
attempt  made  in  England  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of 
German  criticism  in  writing  a  life  of  Jesus.  We  know 
of  no  good  reason  why  the  book  should  be  published 
anonymously ;  for  as  a  historical  essay  it  possesses  ex- 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  8! 

traordinary  merit,  and  does  great  credit  not  only  to  its 
author,  but  to  English  scholarship  and  acumen.*  It  is 
not,  indeed,  a  book  calculated  to  captivate  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  reading  public.  Though  written  in  a  clear, 
forcible,  and  often  elegant  style,  it  possesses  no  such 
wonderful  rhetorical  charm  as  the  work  of  Eenan ;  and 
it  will  probably  never  find  half  a  dozen  readers  where 
the  "  Vie  de  Jesus  "  has  found  a  hundred.  But  the  suc- 
cess of  a  book  of  this  sort  is  not  to  be  measured  by  its 
rhetorical  excellence,  or  by  its  adaptation  to  the  literary 
tastes  of  an  uncritical  and  uninstructed  public,  but 
rather  by  the  amount  of  critical  sagacity  which  it  brings 
to  bear  upon  the  elucidation  of  the  many  difficult  and 
disputed  points  in  the  subject  of  which  it  treats.  Meas- 
ured by  this  standard,  "The  Jesus  of  History"  must 
rank  very  high  indeed.  To  say  that  it  throws  more 
light  upon  the  career  of  Jesus  than  any  work  which  has 
ever  before  been  written  in  English  would  be  very  in- 
adequate praise,  since  the  English  language  has  been 
singularly  deficient  in  this  branch  of  historical  litera- 
ture. We  shall  convey  a  more  just  idea  of  its  merits 
if  we  say  that  it  will  bear  comparison  with  anything 
which  even  Germany  has  produced,  save  only  the  works 
of  Strauss,  Baur,  and  Zeller. 

The  fitness  of  our  author  for  the  task  which  he  has  un- 
dertaken is  shown  at  the  outset  by  his  choice  of  materials. 
In  basing  his  conclusions  almost  exclusively  upon  the 
statements  contained  in  the  first  gospel,  he  is  upheld 
by  every  sound  principle  of  criticism.  The  times  and 
places  at  which  our  three  synoptic  gospels  were  written 
have  been,  through  the  labours  of  the  Tubingen  critics, 
determined  almost  to  a  certainty.  Of  the  three,  "Mark" 

*  "  The  Jesus  of  History  "  is  now  known  to  have  been  written  bv  Sir 
Richard  Hanson,  Chief  Justice  of  South  Australia. 

4*  p 


82  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

is  unquestionably  the  latest ;  with  the  exception  of 
about  twenty  verses,  it  is  entirely  made  up  from  "  Mat- 
thew" and  "Luke,"  the  diverse  Petrine  and  Pauline  ten- 
dencies of  which  it  strives  to  neutralize  in  conformity 
to  the  conciliatory  disposition  of  the  Church  at  Bome^ 
at  the  epoch  at  which  this  gospel  was  written,  about 
A.  D.  130.  The  third  gospel  was  also  written  at  Eome, 
some  fifteen  years  earlier.  In  the  preface,  its  author 
describes  it  as  a  compilation  from  previously  existing 
written  materials.  Among  these  materials  was  certainly 
the  first  gospel,  several  passages  of  which  are  adopted 
word  for  word  by  the  author  of  "  Luke."  Yet  the  nar- 
rative varies  materially  from  that  of  the  first  gospel  in 
many  essential  points.  The  arrangement  of  events  is 
less  natural,  and,  as  in  the  "Acts  of  the  Apostles,"  by 
the  same  author,  there  is  apparent  throughout  the  de- 
sign of  suppressing  the  old  discord  between  Paul  and 
the  Judaizing  disciples,  and  of  representing  Christianity 
as  essentially  Pauline  from  the  outset.  How  far  Paul 
was  correct  in  his  interpretation  of  the  teachings  of 
Jesus,  it  is  difficult  to  decide.  It  is,  no  doubt,  possible 
that  the  first  gospel  may  have  lent  to  the  words  of  Jesus 
an  Ebionite  colouring  in  some  instances,  and  that  now 
and  then  the  third  gospel  may  present  us  with  a  truer  ac- 
count. To  this  supremely  important  point  we  shall  by 
and  by  return.  For  the  present  it  must  suffice  to  observe 
that  the  evidences  of  an  overruling  dogmatic  purpose  are 
generally  much  more  conspicuous  in  the  third  synoptist 
than  in  the  first ;  and  that  the  very  loose  manner  in 
which  this  writer  has  handled  his  materials  in  the 
"  Acts "  is  not  calculated  to  inspire  us  with  confidence 
in  the  historical  accuracy  of  his  gospel.  The  writer 
who,  in  spite  of  the  direct  testimony  of  Paul  himself, 
could  represent  the  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  as  acting 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  83 

under  the  direction  of  the  disciples  at  Jerusalem,  and 
who  puts  Pauline  sentiments  into  the  mouth  of  Peter, 
would  certainly  have  been  capable  of  unwarrantably 
giving  a  Pauline  turn  to  the  teachings  of  Jesus  himself. 
We  are  therefore,  as  a  last  resort,  brought  back  to  the 
first  gospel,  which  we  find  to  possess,  as  a  historical  nar- 
rative, far  stronger  claims  upon  our  attention  than  the 
second  and  third.  In  all  probability  it  had  assumed 
nearly  its  present  shape  before  A.  D.  100 ;  its  origin  is 
unmistakably  Palestinian ;  it  betrays  comparatively  few 
indications  of  dogmatic  purpose;  and  there  are  strong 
reasons  for  believing  that  the  speeches  of  Jesus  recorded 
in  it  are  in  substance  taken  from  the  genuine  "  Logia  " 
of  Matthew  mentioned  by  Papias,  which  must  have 
been  written  as  early  as  A.  D.  60  —  70,  before  the  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem.  Indeed,  we  are  inclined  to 
agree  with  our  author  that  the  gospel,  even  in  its  pres- 
ent shape  (save  only  a  few  interpolated  passages),  may 
have  existed  as  early  as  A.  D.  80,  since  it  places  the 
time  of  Jesus'  second  coming  immediately  after  the  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem ;  whereas  the  third  evangelist, 
who  wrote  forty-five  years  after  that  event,  is  careful  to 
tell  us,  "The  end  is  not  immediately."  Moreover,  it 
must  have  been  written  while  the  Paulo-Petrine  con- 
troversy was  still  raging,  as  is  shown  by  the  parable  of 
the  "enemy  who  sowed  the  tares,"  which  manifestly 
refers  to  Paul,  and  also  by  the  allusions  to  "  false 
prophets"  (vii.  15),  to  those  who  say  "Lord,  Lord,"  and 
who  "  cast  out  demons  in  the  name  of  the  Lord "  (vii. 
21-23),  teaching  men  to  break  the  commandments 
(v.  17-20).  There  is,  therefore,  good  reason  for  believ- 
ing that  we  have  here  a  narrative  written  not  much 
more  than  fifty  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  based 
partly  upon  the  written  memorials  of  an  apostle,  and  in 


84  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

the  main  trustworthy,  save  where  it  relates  occurrences 
of  a  marvellous  and  legendary  character.  Such  is  our 
author's  conclusion,  and  in  describing  the  career  of  the 
Jesus  of  history,  he  relies  almost  exclusively  upon  the 
statements  contained  in  the  first  gospel.  Let  us  now, 
after  this  long  but  inadequate  introduction,  give  a  brief 
sketch  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  as  it  is  to  be  found  in  our 
author. 

Concerning  the  time  and  place  of  the  birth  of  Jesus, 
we  know  next  to  nothing.  According  to  uniform  tradi- 
tion, based  upon  a  statement  of  the  third  gospel,  he  was 
about  thirty  years  of  age  at  the  time  when  he  began 
teaching.  The  same  gospel  states,  with  elaborate  pre- 
cision, that  the  public  career  of  John  the  Baptist  began 
in  the  fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius,  or  A.  D.  28.  In  the 
winter  of  A.  D.  35-36,  Pontius  Pilate  was  recalled  from 
Judaea,  so  that  the  crucifixion  could  not  have  taken 
place  later  than  in  the  spring  of  35.  Thus  we  have 
a  period  of  about  six  years  during  which  the  ministry 
of  Jesus  must  have  begun  and  ended ;  and  if  the  tradi- 
tion with  respect  to  his  age  be  trustworthy,  we  shall  not 
be  far  out  of  the  way  in  supposing  him  to  have  been 
born  somewhere  between  B.  C.  5  and  A.  D.  5.  He  is 
everywhere  alluded  to  in  the  gospels  as  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth in  Galilee,  where  lived  also  his  father,  mother, 
brothers  and  sisters,  and  where  very  likely  he  was  born. 
His  parents'  names  are  said  to  have  been  Joseph  and 
Mary.  His  own  name  is  a  Hellenized  form  of  Joshua, 
a  name  very  common  among  the  Jews.  According  to 
the  first  gospel  (xiii.  55),  he  had  four  brothers,  —  Joseph 
and  Simon ;  James,  who  was  afterwards  one  of  the 
heads  of  the  church  at  Jerusalem,  and  the  most  for- 
midable enemy  of  Paul;  and  Judas  or  Jude,  who  is 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  85 

perhaps  the  author  of  the  anti-Pauline  epistle  commonly 
ascribed  to  him. 

Of  the  early  youth  of  Jesus,  and  of  the  circumstances 
which  guided  his  intellectual  development,  we  know 
absolutely  nothing,  nor  have  we  the  data  requisite  for 
forming  any  plausible  hypothesis.  He  first  appears  in 
history  about  A.  D.  29  or  30,  in  connection  with  a  very 
remarkable  person  whom  the  third  evangelist  describes 
as  his  cousin,  and  who  seems,  from  his  mode  of  life,  to 
have  been  in  some  way  connected  with  or  influenced  by 
the  Hellenizing  sect  of  Essenes.  Here  we  obtain  our 
first  clew  to  guide  us  in  forming  a  consecutive  theory 
of  the  development  of  Jesus'  opinions.  The  sect  of  Es- 
senes took  its  rise  in  the  time  of  the  Maccabees,  about 
B.  C.  170.  Upon  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Judaism 
it  had  engrafted  many  Pythagorean  notions,  and  was 
doubtless  in  the  time  of  Jesus  instrumental  in  spreading 
Greek  ideas  among  the  people  of  Galilee,  where  Juda- 
ism was  far  from  being  so  narrow  and  rigid  as  at  Jeru- 
salem. The  Essenes  attached  but  little  importance  to 
the  Messianic  expectations  of  the  Pharisees,  and  min- 
gled scarcely  at  all  in  national  politics.  They  lived  for 
the  most  part  a  strictly  ascetic  life,  being  indeed  the 
legitimate  predecessors  of  the  early  Christian  hermits 
and  monks.  But  while  pre-eminent  for  sanctity  of  life, 
they  heaped  ridicule  upon  the  entire  sacrificial  service 
of  the  Temple,  despised  the  Pharisees  as  hypocrites,  and 
insisted  upon  charity  toward  all  men  instead  of  the  old 
Jewish  exclusiveness. 

It  was  once  a  favourite  theory  that  both  John  the 
Baptist  and  Jesus  were  members  of  the  Essenian  broth- 
erhood ;  but  that  theory  is  now  generally  abandoned. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  with  John,  who  is 
said  to  have  lived  like  an  anchorite  in  the  desert,  there 


86  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

seems  to  have  been  but  little  practical  Essenism  in 
Jesus,  who  is  almost  uniformly  represented  as  cheerful 
and  social  in  demeanour,  and  against  whom  it  was  ex- 
pressly urged  that  he  came  eating  and  drinking,  making 
no  pretence  of  puritanical  holiness.  He  was  neither  a 
puritan,  like  the  Essenes,  nor  a  ritualist,  like  the  Phar- 
isees. Besides  which,  both  John  and  Jesus  seem  to 
have  begun  their  careers  by  preaching  the  un-Essene 
doctrine  of  the  speedy  advent  of  the  "kingdom  of 
heaven,"  by  which  is  meant  the  reign  of  the  Messiah 
upon  the  earth.  Nevertheless,  though  we  cannot  regard 
Jesus  as  actually  a  member  of  the  Essenian  community 
or  sect,  we  can  hardly  avoid  the  conclusion  that  he,  as 
well  as  John  the  Baptist,  had  been  at  some  time  strong- 
ly influenced  by  Essenian  doctrines.  The  spiritualized 
conception  of  the  "  kingdom  of  heaven  "  proclaimed  by 
him  was  just  what  would  naturally  and  logically  arise 
from  a  remodelling  of  the  Messianic  theories  of  the 
Pharisees  in  conformity  to  advanced  Essenian  notions. 
It  seems  highly  probable  that  some  such  refined  concep- 
tion of  the  functions  of  the  Messiah  was  reached  by 
John,  who,  stigmatizing  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  as 
a  "  generation  of  vipers,"  called  aloud  to  the  people  to 
repent  of  their  sins,  in  view  of  the  speedy  advent  of  the 
Messiah,  and  to  testify  to  their  repentance  by  submitting 
to  the  Essenian  rite  of  baptism.  There  is  no  positive 
evidence  that  Jesus  was  ever  a  disciple  of  John ;  yet 
the  account  of  the  baptism,  in  spite  of  the  legendary 
character  of  its  details,  seems  to  rest  upon  a  historical 
basis ;  and  perhaps  the  most  plausible  hypothesis  which 
can  be  framed  is,  that  Jesus  received  baptism  at  John's 
hands,  became  for  a  while  his  disciple,  and  acquired 
from  him  a  knowledge  of  Essenian  doctrines. 

The  career  of  John  seems  to  have  been  very  brief. 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  87 

His  stern  puritanism  brought  him  soon  into  disgrace 
with  the  government  of  Galilee.  He  was  seized  by 
Herod,  thrown  into  prison,  and  beheaded.  After  the 
brief  hints  given  as  to  the  intercourse  between  Jesus 
and  John,  we  next  hear  of  Jesus  alone  in  the  desert, 
where,  like  Sakyamuni  and  Mohammed,  he  may  have 
brooded  in  solitude  over  his  great  project.  Yet  we  do 
not  find  that  he  had  as  yet  formed  any  distinct  concep- 
tion of  his  own  Messiahship.  The  total  neglect  of  chro- 
nology by  our  authorities  *  renders  it  impossible  to  trace 
the  development  of  his  thoughts  step  by  step ;  but  for 
some  time  after  John's  catastrophe  we  find  him  calling 
upon  the  people  to  repent,  in  view  of  the  speedy  ap- 
proach of  the  Messiah,  speaking  with  great  and  com- 
manding personal  authority,  but  using  no  language  which 
would  indicate  that  he  was  striving  to  do  more  than  wor- 
thily fill  the  place  and  add  to  the  good  work  of  his  late 
master.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  the  first  gos- 
pel inserts  in  this  place,  was  perhaps  never  spoken  as  a 
continuous  discourse ;  but  it  no  doubt  for  the  most  part 
contains  the  very  words  of  Jesus,  and  represents  the 
general  spirit  of  his  teaching  during  this  earlier  portion 
of  his  career.  In  this  is  contained  nearly  all  that  has 
made  Christianity  so  powerful  in  the  domain  of  ethics. 
If  all  the  rest  of  the  gospel  were  taken  away,  or  de- 
stroyed in  the  night  of  some  future  barbarian  invasion, 
we  should  still  here  possess  the  secret  of  the  wonderful 
impression  which  Jesus  made  upon  those  who  heard 
him  speak.  Added  to  the  Essenian  scorn  of  Pharisaic 

*  "The  biographers  [of  Becket]  are  commonly  rather  careless  as  to 
the  order  of  time.  Each  ....  recorded  what  struck  him  most  or 
what  he  best  knew  ;  one  set  down  one  event  and  another  another  ;  and 
none  of  them  paid  much  regard  to  the  order  of  details."  —  Freeman, 
Historical  Essays,  1st  series,  p.  94. 


g3  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

formalism,  and  the  spiritualized  conception  of  the  Mes- 
sianic kingdom,  which  Jesus  may  probably  have  shared 
with  John  the  Baptist,  we  have  here  for  the  first  time 
the  distinctively  Christian  conception  of  the  fatherhood 
of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  men,  which  ultimately 
insured  the  success  of  the  new  religion.  The  special 
point  of  originality  in  Jesus  was  his  conception  of  Deity. 
As  Strauss  well  says,  "  He  conceived  of  God,  in  a  moral 
point  of  view,  as  being  identical  in  character  with  him- 
self in  the  most  exalted  moments  of  his  religious  life, 
and  strengthened  in  turn  his  own  religious  life  by  this 
ideal.  But  the  most  exalted  religious  tendency  in  his 
own  consciousness  was  exactly  that  comprehensive 
love,  overpowering  the  evil  only  by  the  good,  which  he 
therefore  transferred  to  God  as  the  fundamental  ten- 
dency of  His  nature."  From  this  conception  of  God, 
observes  Zeller,  flowed  naturally  all  the  moral  teaching 
of  Jesus,  the  insistence  upon  spiritual  righteousness 
instead  of  the  mere  mechanical  observance  of  Mosaic 
precepts,  the  call  to  be  perfect  even  as  the  Father  is 
perfect,  the  principle  of  the  spiritual  equality  of  men 
before  God,  and  the  equal  duties  of  all  men  toward 
each  other. 

How  far,  in  addition  to  these  vitally  important  les- 
sons, Jesus  may  have  taught  doctrines  of  an  ephemeral 
or  visionary  character,  it  is  very  difficult  to  decide.  We 
are  inclined  to  regard  the  third  gospel  as  of  some  im- 
portance in  settling  this  point.  The  author  of  that  gos- 
pel represents  Jesus  as  decidedly  hostile  to  the  rich. 
Where  Matthew  has  "  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit," 
Luke  has  "  Blessed  are  ye  poor."  In  the  first  gospel  we 
read,  "Blessed  are  they  who  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness,  for  they  will  be  filled  " ;  but  in  the  third 
gospel  we  find,  "  Blessed  are  ye  that  hunger  now,  for  ye 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  89 

will  be  filled " ;  and  this  assurance  is  immediately  fol- 
lowed by  the  denunciation,  "  Woe  to  you  that  are  rich, 
for  ye  have  received  your  consolation !  Woe  to  you 
that  are  full  now,  for  ye  will  hunger."  The  parable  of 
Dives  and  Lazarus  illustrates  concretely  this  view  of 
the  case,  which  is  still  further  corroborated  by  the 
account,  given  in  both  the  first  and  the  third  gospels, 
of  the  young  man  who  came  to  seek  everlasting  life. 
Jesus  here  maintains  that  righteousness  is  insufficient 
unless  voluntary  poverty  be  superadded.  Though  the 
young  man  has  strictly  fulfilled  the  greatest  of  the  com- 
mandments,—  to  love  his  neighbour  as  himself,  —  he  is 
required,  as  a  needful  proof  of  his  sincerity,  to  distribute 
all  his  vast  possessions  among  the  poor.  And  when  he 
naturally  manifests  a  reluctance  to  perform  so  superflu- 
ous a  sacrifice,  Jesus  observes  that  it  will  be  easier  for 
a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a 
rich  man  to  share  in  the  glories  of  the  anticipated  Mes- 
sianic kingdom.  It  is  difficult  to  escape  the  conclusion 
that  we  have  here  a  very  primitive  and  probably  authen- 
tic tradition ;  and  when  we  remember  the  importance 
which,  according  to  the  "Acts,"  the  earliest  disciples 
attached  to  the  principle  of  communism,  as  illustrated 
in  the  legend  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  we  must  admit 
strong  reasons  for  believing  that  Jesus  himself  held 
views  which  tended  toward  the  abolition  of  private 
property.  On  this  point,  the  testimony  of  the  third 
evangelist  singly  is  of  considerable  weight ;  since  at  the 
time  when  he  wrote,  the  communistic  theories  of  the 
first  generation  of  Christians  had  been  generally  aban- 
doned, and  in  the  absence  of  any  dogmatic  motives,  he 
could  only  have  inserted  these  particular  traditions 
because  he  believed  them  to  possess  historical  value. 
But  we  are  not  dependent  on  the  third  gospel  alone. 


QO  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

The  story  just  cited  is  attested  by  both  our  authorities, 
and  is  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  general  views  of 
Jesus  as  reported  by  the  first  evangelist.  Thus  his  dis- 
ciples are  enjoined  to  leave  all,  and  follow  him ;  to  take 
no  thought  for  the  morrow ;  to  think  no  more  of  laying 
up  treasures  on  the  earth, .  for  in  the  Messianic  king- 
dom they  shall  have  treasures  in  abundance,  wThich  can 
neither  be  wasted  nor  stolen.  On  making  their  jour- 
neys, they  are  to  provide  neither  money,  nor  clothes, 
nor  food,  but  are  to  live  at  the  expense  of  those  whom 
they  visit ;  and  if  any  town  refuse  to  harbour  them,  the 
Messiah,  on  his  arrival,  will  deal  with  that  town  more 
severely  than  Jehovah  dealt  with  the  cities  of  the  plain. 
Indeed,  since  the  end  of  the  world  was  to  come  before 
the  end  of  the  generation  then  living  (Matt.  xxiv.  34; 
1  Cor.  xv.  51-56,  vii.  29),  there  could  be  no  need  for 
acquiring  property  or  making  arrangements  for  the  fu- 
ture ;  even  marriage  became  unnecessary.  These  teach- 
ings of  Jesus  have  a  marked  Essenian  character,  as  well 
as  his  declaration  that  in  the  Messianic  kingdom  there 
was  to  be  no  more  marriage,  perhaps  no  distinction  of 
sex  (Matt.  xxii.  30).  The  sect  of  Ebionites,  who  repre- 
sented the  earliest  doctrine  and  practice  of  Christianity 
before  it  had  been  modified  by  Paul,  differed  from  the 
Essenes  in  no  essential  respect  save  in  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  and  the  expectation  of 
his  speedy  return  to  the  earth. 

How  long,  or  with  what  success,  Jesus  continued  to 
preach  the  coming  of  the  Messiah  in  Galilee,  it  is  im- 
possible to  conjecture.  His  fellow-townsmen  of  Naz- 
areth appear  to  have  ridiculed  him  in  his  prophetical 
capacity;  or,  if  we  may  trust  the  third  evangelist,  to 
have  arisen  against  him  with  indignation,  and  made  an 
attempt  upon  his  life.  To  them  he  was  but  a  carpenter, 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  gj 

the  son  of  a  carpenter  (Matt.  xiii.  55 ;  Mark  vi.  3),  who 
told  them  disagreeable  truths.  Our  author  represents 
his  teaching  in  Galilee  to  have  produced  but  little  re- 
sult, but  the  gospel  narratives  afford  no  definite  data  for 
deciding  this  point.  We  believe  the  most  probable  con- 
clusion to  be  that  Jesus  did  attract  many  followers,  and 
became  famous  throughout  Galilee;  for  Herod  is  said 
to  have  regarded  him  as  John  the  Baptist  risen  from 
the  grave.  To  escape  the  malice  of  Herod,  Jesus  then 
retired  to  Syro-Phoenicia,  and  during  this  eventful  jour- 
ney the  consciousness  of  his  own  Messiah  ship  seems 
for  the  first  time  to  have  distinctly  dawned  upon  him 
(Matt.  xiv.  1,  13 ;  xv.  21 ;  xvi.  13  -  20).  Already,  it 
appears,  speculations  were  rife  as  to  the  character  of  this 
wonderful  preacher.  Some  thought  he  was  John  the 
Baptist,  or  perhaps  one  of  the  prophets  of  the  Assyrian 
period  returned  to  the  earth.  Some,  in  accordance  with 
a  generally-received  tradition,  supposed  him  to  be  Elijah, 
who  had  never  seen  death,  and  had  now  at  last  returned 
from  the  regions  above  the  firmament  to  announce  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah  in  the  clouds.  It  was  generally 
admitted,  among  enthusiastic  hearers,  that  he  who  spake 
as  never  man  spake  before  must  have  some  divine  com- 
mission to  execute.  These  speculations,  coining  to  the 
ears  of  Jesus  during  his  preaching  in  Galilee,  could  not 
fail  to  excite  in  him  a  train  of  self-conscious  reflections. 
To  him  also  must  have  been  presented  the  query  as  to 
his  own  proper  character  and  functions ;  and,  as  our 
author  acutely  demonstrates,  his  only  choice  lay  between 
a  profitless  life  of  exile  in  Syro-Phoenicia,  and  a  bold 
return  to  Jewish  territory  in  some  pronounced  character. 
The  problem  being  thus  propounded,  there  could  hardly 
be  a  doubt  as  to  what  that  character  should  be.  Jesus 
knew  well  that  he  was  not  John  the  Baptist ;  nor,  how- 


92 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 


ever  completely  he  may  have  been  dominated  by  his 
sublime  enthusiasm,  was  it  likely  that  he  could  mistake 
himself  for  an  ancient  prophet  arisen  from  the  lower 
world  of  shades,  or  for  Elijah  descended  from  the  sky. 
But  the  Messiah  himself  he  might  well  be.  Such  in- 
deed was  the  almost  inevitable  corollary  from  his  own 
conception  of  Messiahship.  We  have  seen  that  he  had, 
probably  from  the  very  outset,  discarded  the  traditional 
notion  of  a  political  Messiah,  and  recognized  the  truth 
that  the  happiness  of  a  people  lies  not  so  much  in  politi- 
cal autonomy  as  in  the  love  of  God  and  the  sincere  prac- 
tice of  righteousness.  The  people,  were  to  be  freed  from 
the  bondage  of  sin,  of  meaningless  formalism,  of  conse- 
crated hypocrisy,  —  a  bondage  more  degrading  than  the 
payment  of  tribute  to  the  emperor.  The  true  business 
of  the  Messiah,  then,  wras  to  deliver  his  people  from  the 
former  bondage ;  it  might  be  left  to  Jehovah,  in  his  own 
good  time,  to  deliver  them  from  the  latter.  Holding 
these  views,  it  was  hardly  possible  that  it  should  not 
sooner  or  later  occur  to  Jesus  that  he  himself  was  the 
person  destined  to  discharge  this  glorious  function,  to 
liberate  his  countrymen  from  the  thraldom  of  Pharisaic 
ritualism,  and  to  inaugurate  the  real  Messianic  king- 
dom of  spiritual  righteousness.  Had  he  not  already 
preached  the  advent  of  this  spiritual  kingdom,  and  been 
instrumental  in  raising  many  to  loftier  conceptions  of 
duty,  and  to  a  higher  and  purer  life  ?  And  might  he  not 
now,  by  a  grand  attack  upon  Pharisaism  in  its  central 
stronghold,  destroy  its  prestige  in  the  eyes  of  the  people, 
and  cause  Israel  to  adopt  a  nobler  religious  and  ethical 
doctrine  ?  The  temerity  of  such  a  purpose  detracts 
nothing  from  its  sublimity.  And  if  that  purpose  should 
be  accomplished,  Jesus  would  really  have  performed  the 
legitimate  work  of  the  Messiah.  Thus,  from  his  own 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 


93 


point  of  view,  Jesus  was  thoroughly  consistent  and 
rational  in  announcing  himself  as  the  expected  Deliv- 
erer; and  in  the  eyes  of  the  impartial  historian  his 
course  is  fully  justified. 

"From  that  time,"  says  the  first  evangelist,  "Jesus 
began  to  show  to  his  disciples  that  he  must  go  to  Jeru- 
salem, and  suffer  many  things  from  the  elders  and  chief 
priests  and  scribes,  and  be  put  to  death,  and  rise  again 
on  the  third  day."  Here  we  have,  obviously,  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  writer,  after  the  event,  reflected  back  and 
attributed  to  Jesus.  It  is  of  course  impossible  that 
Jesus  should  have  predicted  with  such  definiteness  his 
approaching  death ;  nor  is  it  very  likely  that  he  enter- 
tained any  hope  of  being  raised  from  the  grave  "  on  the 
third  day."  To  a  man  in  that  age  and  country,  the  con- 
ception of  a  return  from  the  lower  world  of  shades  was 
not  a  difficult  one  to  frame ;  and  it  may  well  be  that 
Jesus'  sense  of  his  own  exalted  position  was  sufficiently 
great  to  inspire  him  with  the  confidence  that,  even  in 
case  of  temporary  failure,  Jehovah  would  rescue  him 
from  the  grave  and  send  him  back  with  larger  powers 
to  carry  out  the  purpose  of  his  mission.  But  the  diffi- 
culty of  distinguishing  between  his  own  words  and  the 
interpretation  put  upon  them  by  his  disciples  becomes 
here  insuperable  ;  and  there  will  always  be  room  for 
the  hypothesis  that  Jesus  had  in  view  no  posthumous 
career  of  his  own,  but  only  expressed  his  unshaken  con- 
fidence in  the  success  of  his  enterprise,  even  after  and 
in  spite  of  his  death. 

At  all  events,  the  possibility  of  his  death  must  now 
have  been  often  in  his  mind.  He  was  undertaking  a 
wellnigh  desperate  task,  —  to  overthrow  the  Pharisees 
in  Jerusalem  itself.  No  other  alternative  was  left  him. 
And  here  we  believe  Mr.  F.  "W.  Newman  to  be  sin- 


94 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 


gularly  at  fault  in  pronouncing  this  attempt  of  Jesus 
upon  Jerusalem  a  foolhardy  attempt.  According  to  Mr. 
Newman,  no  man  has  any  business  to  rush  upon  cer- 
tain death,  and  it  is  only  a  crazy  fanatic  who  will  do 
so.*  But  such  "glittering  generalizations"  will  here 
help  us  but  little.  The  historic  data  show  that  to  go  to 
Jerusalem,  even  at  the  risk  of  death,  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  realization  of  Jesus'  Messianic  project. 
Mr.  Newman  certainly  would  not  have  had  him  drag 
out  an  inglorious  and  baffled  existence  in  Syro-Phce- 
nicia.  If  the  Messianic  kingdom  was  to  be  fairly  inau- 
gurated, there  was  work  to  be  done  in  Jerusalem,  and 
Jesus  must  go  there  as  one  in  authority,  cost  what  it 
might.  We  believe  him  to  have  gone  there  in  a  spirit 
of  grand  and  careless  bravery,  yet  seriously  and  soberly, 
and  under  the  influence  of  no  fanatical  delusion.  He 
knew  the  risks,  but  deliberately  chose  to  incur  them, 
that  the  will  of  Jehovah  might  be  accomplished. 

We  next  hear  of  Jesus  travelling  down  to  Jerusalem 
by  way  of  Jericho,  and  entering  the  sacred  city  in  his 
character  of  Messiah,  attended  by  a  great  multitude. 
It  was  near  the  time  of  the  Passover,  when  people  from 
all  parts  of  Galilee  and  Judsea  were  sure  to  be  at  Jeru- 
salem, and  the  nature  of  his  reception  seems  to  indicate 
that  he  had  already  secured  a  considerable  number  of 
followers  upon  whose  assistance  he  might  hope  to  rely, 
though  it  nowhere  appears  that  he  intended  to  use 
other  than  purely  moral  weapons  to  insure  a  favourable 
reception.  We  must  remember  that  for  half  a  century 
many  of  the  Jewish  people  had  been  constantly  looking 
for  the  arrival  of  the  Messiah,  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  entry  of  Jesus  riding  upon  an  ass  in  lit- 
eral fulfilment  of  prophecy  must  have  wrought  power- 
*  Phases  of  Faith,  pp.  158-164. 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 


95 


fully  upon  the  imagination  of  the  multitude.  That  the 
believers  in  him  were  very  numerous  must  be  inferred 
from  the  cautious,  not  to  say  timid,  behaviour  of  the 
rulers  at  Jerusalem,  who  are  represented  as  desiring  to 
arrest  him,  but  as  deterred  from  taking  active  steps 
through  fear  of  the  people.  We  are  led  to  the  same 
conclusion  by  his  driving  the  money-changers  out  of 
the  Temple ;  an  act  upon  which  he  could  hardly  have 
ventured,  had  not  the  popular  enthusiasm  in  his  favour 
been  for  the  moment  overwhelming.  But  the  enthusi- 
asm of  a  mob  is  short-lived,  and  needs  to  be  fed  upon 
the  excitement  of  brilliant  and  dramatically  arranged 
events.  The  calm  preacher  of  righteousness,  or  even 
the  fiery  denouncer  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  could 
not  hope  to  retain  undiminished  authority  save  by  the 
display  of  extraordinary  powers  to  which,  so  far  as 
we  know,  Jesus  (like  Mohammed)  made  no  pretence 
(Matt.  xvi.  1  —  4).  The  ignorant  and  materialistic  pop- 
ulace could  not  understand  the  exalted  conception  of 
Messiahship  which  had  been  formed  by  Jesus,  and  as 
day  after  day  elapsed  without  the  appearance  of  any 
marvellous  sign  from  Jehovah,  their  enthusiasm  must 
naturally  have  cooled  down.  Then  the  Pharisees  ap- 
pear cautiously  endeavouring  to  entrap  him  into  admis- 
sions which  might  render  him  obnoxious  to  the  Roman 
governor.  He  saw  through  their  design,  however,  and 
foiled  them  by  the  magnificent  repartee,  "  Render  unto 
Csesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the 
things  that  are  God's."  Nothing  could  more  forcibly 
illustrate  the  completely  non-political  character  of  his 
Messianic  doctrines.  Nevertheless,  we  are  told  that, 
failing  in  this  attempt,  the  chief  priests  suborned  false 
witnesses  to  testify  against  him :  this  Sabbath-breaker, 
this  derider  of  Mosaic  formalism,  who  with  his  Messi- 


96  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

aiiic  pretensions  excited  the  people  against  their  heredi- 
tary teachers,  must  at  all  events  be  put  out  of  the  way. 
Jesus  must  suffer  the  fate  which  society  has  too  often 
had  in  store  for  the  reformer ;  the  fate  which  Sokrates 
and  Savonarola,  Vanini  and  Bruno,  have  suffered  for 
being  wiser  than  their  own  generation.  Messianic  ad- 
venturers had  already  given  much  trouble  to  the  Roman 
authorities,  who  were  not  likely  to  scrutinize  critically 
the  peculiar  claims  of  Jesus.  And  when  the  chief 
priests  accused  him  before  Pilate  of  professing  to  be 
"  King  of  the  Jews,"  this  claim  could  in  Eoman  appre- 
hension bear  but  one  interpretation.  The  offence  was 
treason,  punishable,  save  in  the  case  of  Roman  citizens, 
by  crucifixion. 

Such  in  its  main  outlines  is  the  historic  career  of 
Jesus,  as  constructed  by  our  author  from  data  furnished 
chiefly  by  the  first  gospel.  Connected  with  the  narra- 
tive there  are  many  interesting  topics  of  discussion,  of 
which  our  rapidly  diminishing  space  will  allow  us  to 
select  only  one  for  comment.  That  one  is  perhaps  the 
most  important  of  all,  namely,  the  question  as  to  how 
far  Jesus  anticipated  the  views  of  Paul  in  admitting 
Gentiles  to  share  in  the  privileges  of  the  Messianic 
kingdom.  Our  author  argues,  with  much  force,  that 
the  designs  of  Jesus  were  entirely  confined  to  the  Jew- 
ish people,  and  that  it  was  Paul  who  first,  by  admitting 
Gentiles  to  the  Christian  fold  without  requiring  them 
to  live  like  Jews,  gave  to  Christianity  the  character  of 
a  universal  religion.  Our  author  reminds  us  that  the 
third  gospel  is  not  to  be  depended  upon  in  determining 
this  point,  since  it  manifestly  puts  Pauline  sentiments 
into  the  mouth  of  Jesus,  and  in  particular  attributes  to 
Jesus  an  acquaintance  with  heretical  Samaria  which  the 
first  gospel  disclaims.  He  argues  that  the  apostles  were 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 


97 


in  every  respect  Jews,  save  in  their  belief  that  Jesus 
was  the  Messiah  ;  and  he  pertinently  asks,  if  James, 
who  was  the  brother  of  Jesus,  and  Peter  and  John,  who 
were  his  nearest  friends,  unanimously  opposed  Paul  and 
stigmatized  him  as  a  liar  and  heretic,  is  it  at  all  likely 
that  Jesus  had  ever  distinctly  sanctioned  such  views  as 
Paul  maintained  ? 

In  the  course  of  many  years'  reflection  upon  this  point, 
we  have  several  times  been  inclined  to  accept  the  nar- 
row interpretation  of  Jesus'  teaching  here  indicated ; 
yet,  on  the  whole,  we  do  not  believe  it  can  ever  be  con- 
clusively established.  In  the  first  place  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  if  the  third  gospel  throws  a  Pauline 
colouring  over  the  events  which  it  describes,  the  first 
gospel  also  shows  a  decidedly  anti-Pauline  bias,  and  the 
one  party  was  as  likely  as  the  other  to  attribute  its  own 
views  to  Jesus  himself.  One  striking  instance  of  this 
tendency  has  been  pointed  out  by  Strauss,  who  has 
shown  that  the  verses  Matt.  v.  17-20  are  an  interpo- 
lation. The  person  who  teaches  men  to  break  the  com- 
mandments is  undoubtedly  Paul,  and  in  order  to  furnish 
a  text  against  Paul's  followers,  the  "  Nicolaitans,"  Jesus 
is  made  to  declare  that  he  came  not  to  destroy  one  tittle 
of  the  law,  but  to  fulfil  the  whole  in  every  particular. 
Such  an  utterance  is  in  manifest  contradiction  to  the 
spirit  of  Jesus'  teaching,  as  shown  in  the  very  same 
chapter,  and  throughout  a  great  part  of  the  same  gospel. 
He  who  taught  in  his  own  name  and  not  as  the  scribes, 
who  proclaimed  himself  Lord  over  the  Sabbath,  and 
who  manifested  from  first  to  last  a  more  than  Essenian 
contempt  for  rites  and  ceremonies,  did  not  come  to  ful- 
fil the  law  of  Mosaism,  but  to  supersede  it.  Nor  can 
any  inference  adverse  to  this  conclusion  be  drawn  from 
the  injunction  to  the  disciples  (Matt.  x.  5-7)  not  to 

5  0 


98 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 


preach  to  Gentiles  and  Samaritans,  but  only  "to  the 
lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel";  for  this  remark  is 
placed  before  the  beginning  of  Jesus'  Messianic  career, 
and  the  reason  assigned  for  the  restriction  is  merely 
that  the  disciples  will  not  have  time  even  to  preach  to 
all  the  Jews  before  the  coining  of  the  Messiah,  whose 
approach  Jesus  was  announcing  (Matt.  x.  23). 

These  examples  show  that  we  must  use  caution  in 
weighing  the  testimony  even  of  the  first  gospel,  and 
must  not  too  hastily  cite  it  as  proof  that  Jesus  supposed 
his  mission  to  be  restricted  to  the  Jews.  When  we 
come  to  consider  what  happened  a  few  years  after  the 
death  of  Jesus,  we  shall  be  still  less  ready  to  insist  upon 
the  view  defended  by  our  anonymous  author.  Paul, 
according  to  his  own  confession,  persecuted  the  Chris- 
tians unto  death.  Now  what,  in  the  theories  or  in  the 
practice  of  the  Jewish  disciples  of  Jesus,  could  have 
moved  Paul  to  such  fanatic  behaviour  ?  Certainly  not 
their  spiritual  interpretation  of  Mosaism,  for  Paul  him- 
self belonged  to  the  liberal  school  of  Gamaliel,  to  the 
views  of  which  the  teachings  and  practices  of  Peter, 
James,  and  John  might  easily  be  accommodated.  Prob- 
ably not  their  belief  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  for  at  the 
riot  in  which  Stephen  was  murdered  and  all  the  Hel- 
lenist disciples  driven  from  Jerusalem,  the  Jewish  dis- 
ciples were  allowed  to  remain  in  the  city  unmolested. 
(See  Acts  viii.  1,  14.)  This  marked  difference  of  treat- 
ment indicates  that  Paul  regarded  Stephen  and  his 
friends  as  decidedly  more  heretical  and  obnoxious  than 
Peter,  James,  and  John,  whom,  indeed,  Paul's  own  mas- 
ter Gamaliel  had  recently  (Acts  v.  34)  defended  before 
the  council.  And  this  inference  is  fully  confirmed  by 
the  account  of  Stephen's  death,  where  his  murderers 
charge  him  with  maintaining  that  Jesus  had  founded  a 


THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY.  99 

new  religion  which  was  destined  entirely  to  supersede 
and  replace  Judaism  (Acts  vi.  14).  The  Petrine  disci- 
ples never  held  this  view  of  the  mission  of  Jesus ;  and 
to  this  difference  it  is  undoubtedly  owing  that  Paul  and 
his  companions  forbore  to  disturb  them.  It  would  thus 
appear  that  even  previous  to  Paul's  conversion,  within 
five  or  six  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  there  was  a 
prominent  party  among  the  disciples  which  held  that  the 
new  religion  was  not  a  modification  but  an  abrogation 
of  Judaism  ;  and  their  name  "  Hellenists  "  sufficiently 
shows  either  that  there  were  Gentiles  among  them  or 
that  they  held  fellowship  with  Gentiles.  It  was  this 
which  aroused  Paul  to  persecution,  and  upon  his  sud- 
den conversion  it  was  with  these  Hellenistic  doctrines 
that  he  fraternized,  taking  little  heed  of  the  Petrine  dis- 
ciples (Galatians  i.  17),  who  were  hardly  more  than  a 
Jewish  sect. 

Now  the  existence  of  these  Hellenists  at  Jerusalem 
so  soon  after  the  death  of  Jesus  is  clear  proof  that  he 
had  never  distinctly  and  irrevocably  pronounced  against 
the  admission  of  Gentiles  to  the  Messianic  kingdom, 
and  it  makes  it  very  probable  that  the  downfall  of 
Mosaism  as  a  result  of  his  preaching  was  by  no  means 
unpremeditated.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  the  obsti- 
nacy of  the  Petrine  party  in  adhering  to  Jewish  cus- 
toms shows  equally  that  Jesus  could  not  have  unequiv- 
ocally committed  himself  in  favour  of  a  new  gospel  for 
the  Gentiles.  Probably  Jesus  was  seldom  brought  into 
direct  contact  with  others  than  Jews,  so  that  the  ques- 
tions concerning  the  admission  of  Gentile  converts  did 
not  come  up  during  his  lifetime ;  and  thus  the  way  was 
left  open  for  the  controversy  which  soon  broke  out 
between  the  Petrine  party  and  Paul.  Nevertheless, 
though  Jesus  may  never  have  definitely  pronounced 


IQQ  THE  JESUS  OF  HISTORY. 

upon  this  point,  it  will  hardly  be  denied  that  his  teach- 
ing, even  as  reported  in  the  first  gospel,  is  in  its  utter 
condemnation  of  formalism  far  more  closely  allied  to 
the  Pauline  than  to  the  Petrine  doctrines.  In  his  hands 
Mosaism  became  spiritualized  until  it  really  lost  its 
identity,  and  was  transformed  into  a  code  fit  for  the 
whole  Eoman  world.  And  we  do  not  doubt  that  if  any 
one  had  asked  Jesus  whether  circumcision  were  an 
essential  prerequisite  for  admission  to  the  Messianic 
kingdom,  he  would  have  given  the  same  answer  which 
Paul  afterwards  gave.  We  agree  with  Zeller  and  Strauss 
that,  "  as  Luther  was  a  more  liberal  spirit  than  the  Lu- 
theran divines  of  the  succeeding  generation,  and  Sokrates 
a  more  profound  thinker  than  Xenophon  or  Antisthenes, 
so  also  Jesus  must  be  credited  with  having  raised  him- 
self far  higher  above  the  narrow  prejudices  of  his  nation 
than  those  of  his  disciples  who  could  scarcely  under- 
stand the  spread  of  Christianity  among  the  heathen 
when  it  had  become  an  accomplished  fact." 

January,  1870. 


IV. 

THE  CHEIST  OF  DOGMA  * 

THE  meagreness  of  our  information  concerning  the 
historic  career  of  Jesus  stands  in  striking  contrast 
with  the  mass  of  information  which  lies  within  our  reach 
concerning  the  primitive  character  of  Christologic  spec- 
ulation. First  we  have  the  four  epistles  of  Paul,  writ- 
ten from  twenty  to  thirty  years  after  the  crucifixion, 
which,  although  they  tell  us  next  to  nothing  about  what 
Jesus  did,  nevertheless  give  us  very  plain  information 
as  to  the  impression  which  he  made.  Then  we  have 
the  Apocalypse,  written  by  John,  A.  D.  68,  which  ex- 
hibits the  Messianic  theory  entertained  by  the  earliest 
disciples.  Next  we  have  the  epistles  to  the  Hebrews, 
Philippians,  Colossians,  and  Ephesians,  besides  the  four 
gospels,  constituting  altogether  a  connected  chain  of 
testimony  to  the  progress  of  Christian  doctrine  from  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  to  the  time  of  the  Quartodeci- 
man  controversy  (A.  D.  70-170).  Finally,  there  is  the 
vast  collection  of  apocryphal,  heretical,  and  patristic  lit- 
erature, from  the  writings  of  Justin  Martyr,  the  pseudo- 
Clement,  and  the  pseudo- Ignatius,  down  to  the  time  of 
the  Council  of  Nikaia,  when  the  official  theories  of 

*  Saint-Paul,  par  Ernest  Eenan.     Paris,  1869. 

Histoire  du  Dogme  de  la  Divinite  de  Jesus-Christ,  par  Albert  Reville. 
Paris,  1869. 

The  End  of  the  World  and  the  Day  of  Judgment.  Two  Discourses 
by  the  Eev.  W.  R.  Alger.  Boston  :  Roberts  Brothers,  1870. 


I02  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

Christ's  person  assumed  very  nearly  the  shape  which 
they  have  retained,  within  the  orthodox  churches  of 
Christendom,  down  to  the  present  day.  As  we  pointed 
out  in  the  foregoing  essay,  while  all  this  voluminous 
literature  throws  but  an  uncertain  light  upon  the  life 
and  teachings  of  the  founder  of  Christianity,  it  nev- 
ertheless furnishes  nearly  all  the  data  which  we  could 
desire  for  knowing  what  the  early  Christians  thought 
of  the  master  of  their  faith.  Having  given  a  brief  ac- 
count of  the  historic  career  of  Jesus,  so  far  as  it  can 
now  be  determined,  we  propose  here  to  sketch  the  rise 
and  progress  of  Christologic  doctrine,  in  its  most  strik- 
ing features,  during  the  first  three  centuries.  Beginning 
with  the  apostolic  view  of  the  human  Messiah  sent  to 
deliver  Judaism  from  its  spiritual  torpor,  and  prepare  it 
for  the  millennial  kingdom,  we  shall  briefly  trace  the 
progressive  metamorphosis  of  this  conception  until  it 
completely  loses  its  identity  in  the  Athanasian  theory, 
according  to  which  Jesus  was  God  himself,  the  Creator 
of  the  universe,  incarnate  in  human  flesh. 

The  earliest  dogma  held  by  the  apostles  concerning 
Jesus  was  that  of  his  resurrection  from  the  grave  after 
death.  It  was  not  only  the  earliest,  but  the  most  essen- 
tial to  the  success  of  the  new  religion.  Christianity 
might  have  overspread  the  Roman  Empire,  and  main- 
tained its  hold  upon  men's  faith  until  to-day,  without 
the  dogmas  of  the  incarnation  and  the  Trinity;  but 
without  the  dogma  of  the  resurrection  it  would  probably 
have  failed  at  the  very  outset.  Its  lofty  morality  would 
not  alone  have  sufficed  to  insure  its  success.  For  what 
men  needed  then,  as  indeed  they  still  need,  and  will 
always  need,  was  not  merely  a  rule  of  life  and  a  mirror 
to  the  heart,  but  also  a  comprehensive  and  satisfactory 
theory  of  things,  a  philosophy  or  theosophy.  The  times 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA.  IO3 

demanded  intellectual  as  well  as  moral  consolation  ;  and 
the  disintegration  of  ancient  theologies  needed  to  be 
repaired,  that  the  new  ethical  impulse  imparted  by 
Christianity  might  rest  upon  a  plausible  speculative 
basis.  The  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  was  but  the 
beginning  of  a  series  of  speculative  innovations  which 
prepared  the  way  for  the  new  religion  to  emancipate 
itself  from  Judaism,  and  achieve  the  conquest  of  the 
Empire.  Even  the  faith  of  the  apostles  in  the  speedy 
return  of  their  master  the  Messiah  must  have  somewhat 
lost  ground,  had  it  not  been  supported  by  their  belief 
in  his  resurrection  from  the  grave  and  his  consequent 
transfer  from  Sheol,  the  gloomy  land  of  shadows,  to  the 
regions  above  the  sky. 

The  origin  of  the  dogma  of  the  resurrection  cannot  be 
determined  with  certainty.  The  question  has,  during 
the  past  century,  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion, 
upon  which  it  is  not  necessary  for  us  here  to  comment. 
Such  apparent  evidence  as  there  is  in  favour  of  the  old 
theory  of  Jesus'  natural  recovery  from  the  effects  of  the 
crucifixion  may  be  found  in  Salvador's  "Jesus-Christ 
et  sa  Doctrine  " ;  but,  as  Zeller  has  shown,  the  theory  is 
utterly  unsatisfactory.  The  natural  return  of  Jesus  to 
his  disciples  never  could  have  given  rise  to  the  notion 
of  his  resurrection,  since  the  natural  explanation  would 
have  been  the  more  obvious  one ;  besides  which,  if  we 
were  to  adopt  this  hypothesis,  we  should  be  obliged  to 
account  for  the  fact  that  the  historic  career  of  Jesus 
ends  with  the  crucifixion.  The  most  probable  explana- 
tion, on  the  whole,  is  the  one  suggested  by  the  accounts 
in  the  gospels,  that  the  dogma  of  the  resurrection  is  due 
originally  to  the  excited  imagination  of  Mary  of  Mag- 
dala.*  The  testimony  of  Paul  may  also  be  cited  in 

*  See  Taine,  De  1'Intelligence,  II.  192. 


IO4 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 


favour  of  this  view,  since  he  always  alludes  to  earlier 
Christophanies  in  just  the  same  language  which  he  uses 
in  describing  his  own  vision  on  the  road  to  Damascus. 

But  the  question  as  to  how  the  belief  in  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus  originated  is  of  less  importance  than  the 
question  as  to  how  it  should  have  produced  the  effect 
that  it  did.  The  dogma  of  the  resurrection  has,  until 
recent  times,  been  so  rarely  treated  from  the  historical 
point  of  view,  that  the  student  of  history  at  first  finds 
some  difficulty  in  thoroughly  realizing  its  import  to  the 
minds  of  those  who  first  proclaimed  it.  We  cannot 
hope  to  understand  it  without  bearing  in  mind  the  the- 
ories of  the  Jews  and  early  Christians  concerning  the 
structure  of  the  world  and  the  cosmic  location  of  de- 
parted souls.  Since  the  time  of  Copernicus  modern 
Christians  no  longer  attempt  to  locate  heaven  and  hell ; 
they  are  conceived  merely  as  mysterious  places  remote 
from  the  earth.  The  theological  universe  no  longer  cor- 
responds to  that  which  physical  science  presents  for  our 
contemplation.  It  was  quite  different  with  the  Jew. 
His  conception  of  the  abode  of  Jehovah  and  the  angels, 
and  of  departed  souls,  was  exceedingly  simple  and  defi- 
nite. In  the  Jewish  theory  the  universe  is  like  a  sort 
of  three-story  house.  The  flat  earth  rests  upon  the 
waters,  and  under  the  earth's  surface  is  the  land  of 
graves,  called  Sheol,  where  after  death  the  souls  of  all 
men  go,  the  righteous  as  well  as  the  wicked,  for  the 
Jew  had  not  arrived  at  the  doctrine  of  heaven  and  hell. 
The  Hebrew  Sheol  corresponds  strictly  to  the  Greek 
Hades,  before  the  notions  of  Elysium  and  Tartarus  were 
added  to  it,  —  a  land  peopled  with  flitting  shadows,  suf- 
fering no  torment,  but  experiencing  no  pleasure,  like 
those  whom  Dante  met  in  one  of  the  upper  circles  of 
his  Inferno.  Sheol  is  the  first  story  of  the  cosmic 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 


105 


house ;  the  earth  is  the  second.  Above  the  earth  is 
the  firmament  or  sky,  which,  according  to  the  book  of 
Genesis  (chap.  i.  v.  6,  Hebrew  text),  is  a  vast  plate 
hammered  out  by  the  gods,  and  supports  a  great  ocean 
like  that  upon  which  the  earth  rests.  Rain  is  caused 
by  the  opening  of  little  windows  or  trap-doors  in  the 
firmament,  through  which  pours  the  water  of  this  upper 
ocean.  Upon  this  water  rests  the  land  of  heaven,  where 
Jehovah  reigns,  surrounded  by  hosts  of  angels.  To  this 
blessed  land  two  only  of  the  human  race  had  ever  been 
admitted,  —  Enoch  and  Elijah,  the  latter  of  whom  had 
ascended  in  a  chariot  of  fire,  and  was  destined  to  return 
to  earth  as  the  herald  and  forerunner  of  the  Messiah. 
Heaven  forms  the  third  story  of  the  cosmic  house. 
Between  the  firmament  and  the  earth  is  the  air,  which 
is  the  habitation  of  evil  demons  ruled  by  Satan,  the 
"prince  of  the  powers  of  the  air." 

Such  was  the  cosmology  of  the  ancient  Jew ;  and  his 
theology  was  equally  simple.  Sheol  was  the  destined 
abode  of  all  men  after  death,  and  no  theory  of  moral 
retribution  was  attached  to  the  conception.  The  re- 
wards and  punishments  known  to  the  authors  of  the 
Pentateuch  and  the  early  Psalms  are  all  earthly  rewards 
and  punishments.  But  in  course  of  time  the  prosperity 
of  the  wicked  and  the  misfortunes  of  the  good  man  fur- 
nished a  troublesome  problem  for  the  Jewish  thinker ; 
and  after  the  Babylonish  Captivity,  we  find  the  doctrine 
of  a  resurrection  from  Sheol  devised  in  order  to  meet 
this  case.  According  to  this  doctrine  —  which  was  bor- 
rowed from  the  Zarathustrian  theology  of  Persia  —  the 
Messiah  on  his  arrival  was  to  free  from  Sheol  all  the 
souls  of  the  righteous,  causing  them  to  ascend  rein- 
vested in  their  bodies  to  a  renewed  and  beautiful  earth, 
while  on  the  other  hand  the  wicked  were  to  be  pun- 

5* 


IO5  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

ished  with  tortures  like  those  of  the  valley  of  Hinnom, 
or  were  to  be  immersed  in  liquid  brimstone,  like  that 
which  had  rained  upon  Sodom  and  Gomorrah.  Here 
we  get  the  first  announcement  of  a  future  state  of  retri- 
bution. The  doctrine  was  peculiarly  Pharisaic,  and  the 
Sadducees,  who  were  strict  adherents  to  the  letter  of 
Mosaism,  rejected  it  to  the  last.  By  degrees  this  doc- 
trine became  coupled  with  the  Messianic  theories  of  the 
Pharisees.  The  loss  of  Jewish  independence  under  the 
dominion  of  Persians,  Macedonians,  and  Romans,  caused 
the  people  to  look  ever  more  earnestly  toward  the  ex- 
pected time  when  the  Messiah  should  appear  in  Jerusa- 
lem to  deliver  them  from  their  oppressors.  The  moral 
doctrines  of  the  Psalms  and  earlier  prophets  assumed 
an  increasingly  political  aspect.  The  Jews  were  the 
righteous  "  under  a  cloud,"  whose  sufferings  were  sym- 
bolically depicted  by  the  younger  Isaiah  as  the  afflic- 
tions of  the  "  servant  of  Jehovah  " ;  while  on  the  other 
hand,  the  "  wicked "  were  the  Gentile  oppressors  of  the 
holy  people.  Accordingly  the  Messiah,  on  his  arrival, 
was  to  sit  in  judgment  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat, 
rectifying  the  wrongs  of  his  chosen  ones,  condemning 
the  Gentile  tyrants  to  the  torments  of  Gehenna,  and 
raising  from  Sheol  all  those  Jews  who  had  lived  and 
died  during  the  evil  times  before  his  coming.  These 
were  to  find  in  the  Messianic  kingdom  the  compensa- 
tion for  the  ills  which  they  had  suffered  in  their  first 
earthly  existence.  Such  are  the  main  outlines  of  the 
theory  found  in  the  Book  of  Enoch,  written  about  B.  C. 
100,  and  it  is  adopted  in  the  Johannine  Apocalypse, 
with  little  variation,  save  in  the  recognition  of  Jesus  as 
the  Messiah,  and  in  the  transferrence  to  his  second  com- 
ing of  all  these  wonderful  proceedings.  The  manner 
of  the  Messiah's  coming  had  been  variously  imagined 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 


107 


According  to  an  earlier  view,  he  was  to  enter  Jerusalem 
as  a  King  of  the  house  of  David,  and  therefore  of  hu- 
man lineage.  According  to  a  later  view,  presented  in 
the  Book  of  Daniel,  he  was  to  descend  from  the  sky, 
and  appear  among  the  clouds.  Both  these  views  were 
adopted  by  the  disciples  of  Jesus,  who  harmonized  them 
by  referring  the  one  to  his  first  and  the  other  to  his 
second  appearance. 

Now  to  the  imaginations  of  these  earliest  disciples 
the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  presented  itself 
as  a  needful  guarantee  of  his  Messiahship.  Their  faith, 
which  must  have  been  shaken  by  his  execution  and 
descent  into  Sheol,  received  welcome  confirmation  by 
the  springing  up  of  the  belief  that  he  had  been  again 
seen  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  Applying  the  imagery 
of  Daniel,  it  became  a  logical  conclusion  that  he  must 
have  ascended  into  the  sky,  whence  he  might  shortly 
be  expected  to  make  his  appearance,  to  enact  the  scenes 
foretold  in  prophecy.  That  such  was  the  actual  process 
of  inference  is  shown  by  the  legend  of  the  Ascension  in 
the  first  chapter  of  the  "Acts,"  and  especially  by  the 
words,  "  This  Jesus  who  hath  been  taken  up  from  you 
into  heaven,  will  come  in  the  same  manner  in  which  ye 
beheld  him  going  into  heaven."  In  the  Apocalypse, 
written  A.  D.  68,  just  after  the  death  of  Nero,  this 
second  coming  is  described  as  something .  immediately 
to  happen,  and  the  colours  in  which  it  is  depicted  show 
how  closely  allied  were  the  Johannine  notions  to  those 
of  the  Pharisees.  The  glories  of  the  New  Jerusalem  are 
to  be  reserved  for  Jews,  while  for  the  Eoman  tyrants  of 
Judaea  is  reserved  a  fearful  retribution.  They  are  to  be 
trodden  underfoot  by  the  Messiah,  like  grapes  in  a 
wine-press,  until  the  gushing  blood  shall  rise  to  the 
height  of  the  horse's  bridle. 


108  TEE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

In  the  writings  of  Paul  the  dogma  of  the  resurrection 
assumes  a  very  different  aspect.  Though  Paul,  like  the 
older  apostles,  held  that  Jesus,  as  the  Messiah,  was  to 
return  to  the  earth  within  a  few  years,  yet  to  his  catho- 
lic mind  this  anticipated  event  had  become  divested  of 
its  narrow  Jewish  significance.  In  the  eyes  of  Paul, 
the  religion  preached  by  Jesus  was  an  abrogation  of 
Mosaism,  and  the  truths  contained  in  it  were  a  free  gift 
to  the  Gentile  as  well  as  to  the  Jewish  world.  Accord- 
ing to  Paul,  death  came  into  the  world  as  a  punishment 
for  the  sin  of  Adam.  By  this  he  meant  that,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  original  transgression,  all  men  escaping 
death  would  either  have  remained  upon  earth  or  have 
been  conveyed  to  heaven,  like  Enoch  and  Elijah,  in  in- 
corruptible bodies.  But  in  reality  as  a  penance  for  dis- 
obedience, all  men,  with  these  two  exceptions,  had  suf- 
fered death,  and  been  exiled  to  the  gloomy  caverns  of 
Sheol.  The  Mosaic  ritual  was  powerless  to  free  men 
from  this  repulsive  doom,  but  it  had  nevertheless  served 
a  good  purpose  in  keeping  men's  minds  directed  toward 
holiness,  preparing  them,  as  a  schoolmaster  would  pre- 
pare his  pupils,  to  receive  the  vitalizing  truths  of  Christ. 
Now,  at  last,  the  Messiah  or  Christ  had  come  as  a  sec- 
ond Adam,  and  being  without  sin  had  been  raised  by 
Jehovah  out  of  Sheol  and  taken  up  into  heaven,  as  tes- 
timony to  men  that  the  power  of  sin  and  death  was 
at  last  defeated.  The  way  henceforth  to  avoid  death 
and  escape  the  exile  to  Sheol  was  to  live  spiritually  like 
Jesus,  and  with  him  to  be  dead  to  sensual  requirements. 
Faith,  in  Paul's  apprehension,  was  not  an  intellectual 
assent  to  definitely  prescribed  dogmas,  but,  as  Matthew 
Arnold  has  well  pointed  out,  it  was  an  emotional  striv- 
ing after  righteousness,  a  developing  consciousness  of 
God  in  the  soul,  such  as  Jesus  had  possessed,  or,  in 


THE  CHRIST   OF  DOGMA.  IOQ 

Paul's  phraseology,  a  subjugation  of  the  flesh  by  the 
spirit.  All  those  who  should  thus  seek  spiritual  per- 
fection should  escape  the  original  curse.  The  Messiah 
was  destined  to  return  to  the  earth  to  establish  the 
reign  of  spiritual  holiness,  probably  during  Paul's  own 
lifetime  (1  Cor.  xv.  51).  Then  the  true  followers  of 
Jesus  should  be  clothed  in  ethereal  bodies,  free  from 
the  imperfections  of  "the  flesh,"  and  should  ascend  to 
heaven  without  suffering  death,  while  the  righteous 
dead  should  at  the  same  time  be  released  from  Sheol, 
even  as  Jesus  himself  had  been  released. 

To  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection,  in  which  ethical 
and  speculative  elements  are  thus  happily  blended  by 
Paul,  the  new  religion  doubtless  owed  in  great  part  its 
rapid  success.  Into  an  account  of  the  causes  which 
favoured  the  spreading  of  Christianity,  it  is  not  our 
purpose  to  enter  at  present.  But  we  may  note  that  the 
local  religions  of  the  ancient  pagan  world  had  partly 
destroyed  each  other  by  mutual  intermingling,  and  had 
lost  their  hold  upon  people  from  the  circumstance  that 
their  ethical  teaching  no  longer  corresponded  to  the 
advanced  ethical  feeling  of  the  age.  Polytheism,  in 
short,  was  outgrown.  It  was  outgrown  both  intellectu- 
ally and  morally.  People  were  ceasing  to  believe  in  its 
doctrines,  and  were  ceasing  to  respect  its  precepts.  The 
learned  were  taking  refuge  in  philosophy,  the  ignorant 
in  mystical  superstitions  imported  from  Asia.  The  com- 
manding ethical  motive  of  ancient  republican  times  had 
been  patriotism,  —  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  com- 
munity. But  Roman  dominion  had  destroyed  patriot- 
ism as  a  guiding  principle  of  life,  and  thus,  in  every  way 
the  minds  of  men  were  left  in  a  sceptical,  unsatisfied 
state,  —  craving  after  a  new  theory  of  life,  and  craving 
after  a  new  stimulus  to  right  action.  Obviously  the 


HO  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

only  theology  which  could  now  be  satisfactory  to  phi- 
losophy or  to  common-sense  was  some  form  of  monothe- 
ism;—  some  system  of  doctrines  which  should  repre- 
sent all  men  as  spiritually  subjected  to  the  will  of  a 
single  God,  just  as  they  were  subjected  to  the  temporal 
authority  of  the  Emperor.  And  similarly  the  only  sys- 
tem of  ethics  which  could  have  a  chance  of  prevailing 
must  be  some  system  which  should  clearly  prescribe 
the  mutual  duties  of  all  men  without  distinction  of  race 
or  locality.  Thus  the  spiritual  morality  of  Jesus,  and 
his  conception  of  God  as  a  father  and  of  all  men  as 
brothers,  appeared  at  once  to  meet  the  ethical  and  spec- 
ulative demands  of  the  time. 

Yet  whatever  effect  these  teachings  might  have  pro- 
duced, if  unaided  by  further  doctrinal  elaboration,  was 
enhanced  myriadfold  by  the  elaboration  which  they  re- 
ceived at  the  hands  of  Paul.  Philosophic  Stoics  and 
Epicureans  had  arrived  at  the  conception  of  the  brother- 
hood of  men,  and  the  Greek  hymn  of  Kleanthes  had 
exhibited  a  deep  spiritual  sense  of  the  fatherhood  of 
God.  The  originality  of  Christianity  lay  not  so  much 
in  its  enunciation  of  new  ethical  precepts  as  in  the  fact 
that  it  furnished  a  new  ethical  sanction,  —  a  command- 
ing incentive  to  holiness  of  living.  That  it  might  ac- 
complish this  result,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  it 
should  begin  by  discarding  both  the  ritualism  and  the 
narrow  theories  of  Judaism.  The  mere  desire  for  a  mo- 
notheistic creed  had  led  many  pagans,  in  Paul's  time, 
to  embrace  Judaism,  in  spite  of  its  requirements,  which 
to  Eomans  and  Greeks  were  meaningless,  and  often  dis- 
gusting; but  such  conversions  could  never  have  been 
numerous.  Judaism  could  never  have  conquered  the 
Eoman  world ;  nor  is  it  likely  that  the  Judaical  Chris- 
tianity of  Peter,  James,  and  John  would  have  been  any 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA.  j  j  l 

more  successful.  The  doctrine  of  the  resurrection,  in 
particular,  was  not  likely  to  prove  attractive  when  ac- 
companied by  the  picture  of  the  Messiah  treading  the 
Gentiles  in  the  wine-press  of  his  righteous  indignation. 
But  here  Paul  showed  his  profound  originality.  The 
condemnation  of  Jewish  formalism  which  Jesus  had 
pronounced,  Paul  turned  against  the  older  apostles,  who 
insisted  upon  circumcision.  With  marvellous  flexibil- 
ity of  mind,  Paul  placed  circumcision  and  the  Mosaic 
injunctions  about  meats  upon  a  level  with  the  ritual 
observances  of  pagan  nations,  allowing  each  feeble 
brother  to  perform  such  works  as  might  tickle  his 
fancy,  but  bidding  all  take  heed  that  salvation  was  not 
to  be  obtained  after  any  such  mechanical  method,  but 
only  by  devoting  the  whole  soul  to  righteousness,  after 
the  example  of  Jesus. 

This  was  the  negative  part  of  Paul's  work.  This  was 
the  knocking  down  of  the  barriers  which  had  kept  men, 
and  would  always  have  kept  them,  from  entering  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  But  the  positive  part  of  Paul's 
work  is  contained  in  his  theory  of  the  salvation  of  men 
from  death  through  the  second  Adam,  whom  Jehovah 
rescued  from  Sheol  for  his  sinlessness.  The  resurrection 
of  Jesus  was  the  visible  token  of  the  escape  from  death 
which  might  be  achieved  by  all  men  who,  with  God's 
aid,  should  succeed  in  freeing  themselves  from  the  bur- 
den of  sin  which  had  encumbered  all  the  children  of 
Adam.  The  end  of  the  world  was  at  hand,  and  they 
who  would  live  with  Christ  must  figuratively  die  with 
Christ,  —  must  become  dead  to  sin.  Thus  to  the  pure 
and  spiritual  ethics  contained  in  the  teachings  of  Jesus, 
Paul  added  an  incalculably  powerful  incentive  to  right 
action,  and  a  theory  of  life  calculated  to  satisfy  the  spec- 
ulative necessities  of  the  pagan  or  Gentile  world.  To  the 


1 1 2  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

educated  and  sceptical  Athenian,  as  to  the  critical  scholar 
of  modern  times,  the  physical  resurrection  of  Jesus  from 
the  grave,  and  his  ascent  through  the  vaulted  floor  of 
heaven,  mi«ht  seem  foolishness  or  naivete.  But  to  the 

'  O 

average  Greek  or  Roman  the  conception  presented  no 
serious  difficulty.  The  cosmical  theories  upon  which 
the  conception  was  founded  were  essentially  the  same 
among  Jews  and  Gentiles,  and  indeed  were  but  little 
modified  until  the  establishment  of  the  Copernican  as- 
tronomy. The  doctrine  of  the  Messiah's  second  coming 
was  also  received  without  opposition,  and  for  about  a 
century  men  lived  in  continual  anticipation  of  that 
event,  until  hope  long  deferred  produced  its  usual  re- 
sults; the  writings  in  which  that  event  was  predicted 
were  gradually  explained  away,  ignored,  or  stigmatized 
as  uncanonical ;  and  the  Church  ended  by  condemning 
as  a  heresy  the  very  doctrine  which  Paul  and  the  Juda- 
izing  apostles,  who  agreed  in  little  else,  had  alike  made 
the  basis  of  their  speculative  teachings.  Neverthe- 
less, by  the  dint  of  allegorical  interpretation,  the  belief 
has  maintained  an  obscure  existence  even  down  to 
the  present  time  ;  the  Antiochus  of  the  Book  of 
Daniel  and  the  Nero  of  the  Apocalypse  having  given 
place  to  the  Eoman  Pontiff  or  to  the  Emperor  of  the 
French. 

But  as  the  millennium  of  the  primitive  Church  grad- 
ually died  out  during  the  second  century,  the  essential 
principles  involved  in  it  lost  none  of  their  hold  on  men's 
minds.  As  the  generation  contemporary  with  Paul  died 
away  and  was  gathered  into  Sheol,  it  became  apparent 
that  the  original  theory  must  be  somewhat  modified, 
and  to  this  question  the  author  of  the  second  epistle  to 
the  Thessalonians  addresses  himself.  Instead  of  literal 
preservation  from  death,  the  doctrine  of  a  resurrection 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA.  n$ 

from  the  grave  was  gradually  extended  to  the  case  of  the 
new  believers,  who  were  to  share  in  the  same  glorious 
revival  with  the  righteous  of  ancient  times.  And  thus 
by  slow  degrees  the  victory  over  death,  of  which  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  was  a  symbol  and  a  witness,  be- 
came metamorphosed  into  the  comparatively  modern 
doctrine  of  the  rest  of  the  saints  in  heaven,  while  the 
banishment  of  the  unrighteous  to  Sheol  was  made  still 
more  dreadful  by  coupling  with  the  vague  conception 
of  a  gloomy  subterranean  cavern  the  horrible  imagery 
of  the  lake  of  fire  and  brimstone  borrowed  from  the 
apocalyptic  descriptions  of  Gehenna.  But  in  this  modi- 
fication of  the  original  theory,  the  fundamental  idea 
of  a  future  state  of  retribution  was  only  the  more  dis- 
tinctly emphasized ;  although,  in  course  of  time,  the 
original  incentive  to  righteousness  supplied  by  Paul 
was  more  and  more  subordinated  to  the  comparatively 
degrading  incentive  involved  in  the  fear  of  damnation. 
There  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  the  definiteness  and 
vividness  of  the  Pauline  theory  of  a  future  life  contrib- 
uted very  largely  to  the  rapid  spread  of  the  Christian 
religion ;  nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  to  the  desire  to  be 
holy  like  Jesus,  in  order  to  escape  death  and  live  with 
Jesus,  is  due  the  elevating  ethical  influence  which,  even 
in  the  worst  times  of  ecclesiastic  degeneracy,  Christian- 
ity has  never  failed  to  exert.  Doubtless,  as  Lessing 
long  ago  observed,  the  notion  of  future  reward  and  pun- 
ishment needs  to  be  eliminated  in  order  that  the  incen- 
tive to  holiness  may  be  a  perfectly  pure  one.  The  high- 
est virtue  is  that  which  takes  no  thought  of  reward  or 
punishment ;  but  for  a  conception  of  this  sort  the  mind 
of  antiquity  was  not  ready,  nor  is  the  average  mind  of 
to-day  yet  ready ;  and  the  sudden  or  premature  disso- 
lution of  the  Christian  theory  —  which  is  fortunately 


114  THE  CHRI^T  OF  DOGMA. 

impossible  —  might  perhaps  entail  a  moral  retrogra- 
dation. 

The  above  is  by  no  means  intended  as  a  complete 
outline  of  the  religious  philosophy  of  Paul.  We  have 
aimed  only  at  a  clear  definition  of  the  character  and 
scope  of  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  at  the 
time  when  it  was  first  elaborated.  We  have  now  to 
notice  the  influence  of  that  doctrine  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  Christologic  speculation. 

In  neither  of  the  four  genuine  epistles  of  Paul  is 
Jesus  described  as  superhuman,  or  as  differing  in  nature 
from  other  men,  save  in  his  freedom  from  sin.  As  Baur 
has  shown,  "  the  proper  nature  of  the  Pauline  Christ  is 
human.  He  is  a  man,  but  a  spiritual  man,  one  in  whom 
spirit  or  pneuma  was  the  essential  principle,  so  that  he 
was  spirit  as  well  as  man.  The  principle  of  an  ideal 
humanity  existed  before  Christ  in  the  bright  form  of  a 
typical  man,  but  was  manifested  to  mankind  in  the  per- 
son of  Christ."  Such,  according  to  Baur,  is  Paul's  in- 
terpretation of  the  Messianic  idea.  Paul  knows  noth- 
ing of  the  miracles,  of  the  supernatural  conception,  of 
the  incarnation,  or  of  the  Logos.  The  Christ  whom  he 
preaches  is  the  man  Jesus,  the  founder  of  a  new  and 
spiritual  order  of  humanity,  as  Adam  was  the  father  of 
humanity  after  the  flesh.  The  resurrection  is  uniformly 
described  by  him  as  a  manifestation  of  the  power  of 
Jehovah,  not  of  Jesus  himself.  The  later  conception  of 
Christ  bursting  the  barred  gates  of  Sheol,  and  arising 
by  his  own  might  to  heaven,  finds  no  warrant  in  the 
expressions  of  Paul.  Indeed,  it  was  essential  to  Paul's 
theory  of  the  Messiah  as  a  new  Adam,  that  he  should 
be  human  and  not  divine ;  for  the  escape  of  a  divine 
being  from  Sheol  could  afford  no  precedent  and  furnish 
no  assurance  of  the  future  escape  of  human  beings.  It 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA.  !  j  5 

was  expressly  because  the  man  Jesus  had  been  rescued 
from  the  grave  because  of  his  spirituality,  that  other 
men  might  hope,  by  becoming  spiritual  like  him,  to  be 
rescued  also.  Accordingly  Paul  is  careful  to  state  that 
"  since  through  man  came  death,  through  man  came  also 
the  resurrection  of  the  dead"  (1  Cor.  xv.  21) ;  a  pas- 
sage which  would  look  like  an  express  denial  of  Christ's 
superhuman  character,  were  it  probable  that  any  of 
Paul's  contemporaries  had  ever  conceived  of  Jesus  as 
other  than  essentially  human. 

But  though  Paul's  Christology  remained  in  this  primi- 
tive stage,  it  contained  the  germs  of  a  more  advanced 
theory.  For  even  Paul  conceived  of  Jesus  as  a  man 
wholly  exceptional  in  spiritual  character ;  or,  in  the 
phraseology  of  the  time,  as  consisting  to  a  larger  extent 
of  pneumci  than  any  man  who  had  lived  before  him. 
The  question  was  sure  to  arise,  Whence  came  this  pneu- 
ma  or  spiritual  quality  ?  Whether  the  question  ever 
distinctly  presented  itself  to  Paul's  mind  cannot  be  de- 
termined. Probably  it  did  not.  In  those  writings  of 
his  which  have  come  down  to  us,  he  shows  himself  care- 
less of  metaphysical  considerations.  He  is  mainly  con- 
cerned with  exhibiting  the  unsatisfactory  character  of 
Jewish  Christianity,  and  with  inculcating  a  spiritual 
morality,  to  which  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  resurrection 
is  made  to  supply  a  surpassingly  powerful  sanction. 
But  attempts  to  solve  the  problem  were  not  long  in 
coming.  According  to  a  very  early  tradition,  of  which 
the  obscured  traces  remain  in  the  synoptic  gospels,  Jesus 
received  the  pneuma  at  the  time  of  his  baptism,  when 
the  Holy  Spirit,  or  visible  manifestation  of  the  essence 
of  Jehovah,  descended  upon  him  and  became  incarnate 
in  him.  This  theory,  however,  was  exposed  to  the  ob- 
jection that  it  implied  a  sudden  and  entire  transforma- 


U6  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

tion  of  an  ordinary  man  into  a  person  inspired  or  pos- 
sessed by  the  Deity.  Though  long  maintained  by  the 
Ebionites  or  primitive  Christians,  it  was  very  soon  re- 
jected by  the  great  body  of  the  Church,  which  asserted 
instead  that  Jesus  had  been  inspired  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
from  the  moment  of  his  conception.  From  this  it  was 
but  a  step  to  the  theory  that  Jesus  was  actually  begot- 
ten by  or  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  a  notion  which  the  Hel- 
lenic mind,  accustomed  to  the  myths  of  Leda,  Anchises, 
and  others,  found  no  difficulty  in  entertaining.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews,  as  cited  by  Origen, 
the  Holy  Spirit  was  the  mother  of  Jesus,  and  Joseph 
was  his  father.  But  according  to  the  prevailing  opinion, 
as  represented  in  the  first  and  third  synoptists,  the  rela- 
tionship was  just  the  other  way.  \Yith  greater  apparent 
plausibility,  the  divine  aeon  was  substituted  for  the 
human  father,  and  a  myth  sprang  up,  of  which  the  ma- 
terialistic details  furnished  to  the  opponents  of  the  new 
religion  an  opportunity  for  making  the  most  gross  and 
exasperating  insinuations.  The  dominance  of  this  the- 
ory marks  the  era  at  which  our  first  and  third  synoptic 
gospels  were  composed,  —  from  sixty  to  ninety  years 
after  the  death  of  Jesus.  In  the  luxuriant  mythologic 
growth  there  exhibited,  we  may  yet  trace  the  various 
successive  phases  of  Christologic  speculation  but  imper- 
fectly blended.  In  "Matthew"  and  "Luke"  we  find 
the  original  Messianic  theory  exemplified  in  the  geneal- 
ogies of  Jesus,  in  which,  contrary  to  historic  probability 
(cf.  Matt.  xxii.  41-46),  but  in  accordance  with  a  time- 
honoured  tradition,  his  pedigree  is  traced  back  to  David ; 
"Matthew"  referring  him  to  the  royal  line  of  Judah, 
while  "Luke"  more  cautiously  has  recourse  to  an  as- 
sumed younger  branch.  Superposed  upon  this  primi- 
tive mythologic  stratum,  we  find,  in  the  same  narratives, 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 


117 


the  account  of  the  descent  of  the  pneuma  at  the  time  of 
the  baptism ;  and  crowning  the  whole,  there  are  the  two 
accounts  of  the  nativity  which,  though  conflicting  in 
nearly  all  their  details,  agree  in  representing  the  divine 
pneuma  as  the  father  of  Jesus.  Of  these  three  stages 
of  Christology,  the  last  becomes  entirely  irreconcilable 
with  the  first ;  and  nothing  can  better  illustrate  the 
uncritical  character  of  the  synoptists  than  the  fact  that 
the  assumed  descent  of  Jesus  from  David  through  his 
father  Joseph  is  allowed  to  stand  side  by  side  with  the 
account  of  the  miraculous  conception  which  completely 
negatives  it.  Of  this  difficulty  "Matthew"  is  quite 
unconscious,  and  "  Luke,"  while  vaguely  noticing  it  (iii. 
23),  proposes  no  solution,  and  appears  undisturbed  by 
the  contradiction. 

Thus  far  the  Christology  with  which  we  have  been 
dealing  is  predominantly  Jewish,  though  to  some  extent 
influenced  by  Hellenic  conceptions.  None  of  the  suc- 
cessive doctrines  presented  in  Paul,  "Matthew,"  and 
"  Luke  "  assert  or  imply  the  pre-existence  of  Jesus.  At 
this  early  period  he  was  regarded  as  a  human  being 
raised  to  participation  in  certain  attributes  of  divinity ; 
and  this  was  as  far  as  the  dogma  could  be  carried  by 
the  Jewish  metaphysics.  But  soon  after  the  date  of 
our  third  gospel,  a  Hellenic  system  of  Christology  arose 
into  prominence,  in  which  the  problem  .was  reversed, 
and  Jesus  was  regarded  as  a  semi-divine  being  tempo- 
rarily lowered  to  participation  in  certain  attributes  of 
humanity.  For  such  a  doctrine  Jewish  mythology  sup- 
plied no  precedents ;  but  the  Indo-European  mind  was 
familiar  with  the  conception  of  deity  incarnate  in  hu- 
man form,  as  in  the  avatars  of  Vishnu,  or  even  suffering 
in  the  interests  of  humanity,  as  in  the  noble  myth  of  Pro- 
metheus. The  elements  of  Christology. pre-existing  in 


Hg  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA- 

the  religious  conceptions  of  Greece,  India,  and  Persia, 
are  too  rich  and  numerous  to  be  discussed  here.  A  very 
full  account  of  them  is  given  in  Mr.  R.  W.  Mackay's 
acute  and  learned  treatise  on  the  "  Religious  Develop- 
ment of  the  Greeks  and  Hebrews." 

It  was  in  Alexandria,  where  Jewish  theology  first 
came  into  contact  with  Hellenic  and  Oriental  ideas,  that 
the  way  was  prepared  for  the  dogma  of  Christ's  pre- 
existence.  The  attempt  to  rationalize  the  conception 
of  deity  as  embodied  in  the  Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment gave  rise  to  the  class  of  opinions  described  as 
Gnosis,  or  Gnosticism.  The  signification  of  Gnosis  is 
simply  "  rationalism,"  — the  endeavour  to  harmonize  the 
materialistic  statements  of  an  old  mythology  with  the 
more  advanced  spiritualistic  philosophy  of  the  time. 
The  Gnostics  rejected  the  conception  of  an  anthropo- 
morphic deity  who  had  appeared  visibly  and  audibly 
to  the  patriarchs ;  and  they  were  the  authors  of  the 
doctrine,  very  widely  spread  during  the  second  and 
third  centuries,  that  God  could  not  in  person  have  been 
the  creator  of  the  world.  According  to  them,  God,  as 
pure  spirit,  could  not  act  directly  upon  vile  and  gross 
matter.  The  difficulty  which  troubled  them  was  curi- 
ously analogous  to  that  which  disturbed  the  Cartesians 
and  the  followers  of  Leibnitz  in  the  seventeenth  century; 
how  was  spirit  to  act  upon  matter,  without  ceasing,  pro 
tanto,  to  be  spirit  ?  To  evade  this  difficulty,  the  Gnos- 
tics postulated  a  series  of  emanations  from  God,  becom- 
ing successively  less  and  less  spiritual  and  more  and 
more  material,  until  at  the  lowest  end  of  the  scale  was 
reached  the  Demiurgus  or  Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, who  created  the  world  and  appeared,  clothed  in 
material  form,  to  the  patriarchs.  According  to  some  of 
the  Gnostics  this  lowest  aeon  or  emanation  was  identical 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

with  the  Jewish  Satan,  or  the  Ahriman  of  the  Persians, 
who  is  called  "  the  prince  of  this  world,"  and  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world  was  an  essentially  evil  act.  But  all 
did  not  share  in  these  extreme  opinions.  In  the  pre- 
vailing theory,  this  last  of  the  divine  emanations  was 
identified  with  the  "  Sophia,"  or  personified  "  Wisdom/' 
of  the  Book  of  Proverbs  (viii.  22  —  30),  who  is  described 
as  present  with  God  before  the  foundation  of  the  world. 
The  totality  of  these  seons  constituted  the  pleroma,  or 
"  fulness  of  God  "  (Coloss.  i.  20 ;  Eph.  i.  23),  and  in  a 
corollary  which  bears  unmistakable  marks  of  Buddhist 
influence,  it  was  argued  that,  in  the  final  consummation 
of  things,  matter  should  be  eliminated  and  all  spirit 
reunited  with  God,  from  whom  it  had  primarily  flowed. 
It  was  impossible  that  such  views  as  these  should  not 
soon  be  taken  up  and  applied  to  the  fluctuating  Chris- 
tology  of  the  time.  According  to  the  "  Shepherd  of 
Hernias,"  an  apocalyptic  writing  nearly  contemporary 
with  the  gospel  of  "  Mark,"  the  seon  or  son  of  God  who 
existed  previous  to  the  creation  was  not  the  Christ,  or 
the  Sophia,  but  the  Pneuma  or  Holy  Spirit,  represent- 
ed in  the  Old  Testament  as  the  "  angel  of  Jehovah." 
Jesus,  in  reward  for  his  perfect  goodness,  was  admitted 
to  a  share  in  the  privileges  of  this  Pneuma  (Eeville, 
p.  39).  Here,  as  M.  Eeville  observes,  though  a  Gnostic 
idea  is  adopted,  Jesus  is  nevertheless  viewed  as  ascend- 
ing humanity,  and  not  as  descending  divinity.  The 
author  of  the  "  Clementine  Homilies  "  advances  a  step 
farther,  and  clearly  assumes  the  pre-existence  of  Jesus, 
who,  in  his  opinion,  was  the  pure,  primitive  man,  suc- 
cessively incarnate  in  Adam,  Enoch,  Noah,  Abraham, 
Isaac,  Jacob,  Moses,  and  finally  in  the  Messiah  or 
Christ.  The  author  protests,  in  vehement  language, 
against  those  Hellenists  who,  misled  by  their  polythe- 


12Q  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

istic  associations,  would  elevate  Jesus  into  a  god.  Nev- 
ertheless, his  own  hypothesis  of  pre-existence  supplied 
at  once  the  requisite  fulcrum  for  those  Gnostics  who 
wished  to  reconcile  a  strict  monotheism  with  the  ascrip- 
tion of  divine  attributes  to  Jesus.  Combining  with  this 
notion  of  pre-existence  the  pneumatic  or  spiritual  qual- 
ity attributed  to  Jesus  in  the  writings  of  Paul,  the 
Gnosticizing  Christians  maintained  that  Christ  was  an 
seon  or  emanation  from  God,  redeeming  men  from  the 
consequences  entailed  by  their  imprisonment  in  matter. 
At  this  stage  of  Christologic  speculation  appeared  the 
anonymous  epistle  to  the  "  Hebrews,"  and  the  pseudo- 
Pauline  epistles  to  the  "  Colossians,"  "  Ephesians,"  and 
"  Philippians "  (A.  D.  130).  In  these  epistles,  which 
originated  among  the  Pauline  Christians,  the  Gnostic 
theosophy  is  skilfully  applied  to  the  Pauline  conception 
of  the  scope  and  purposes  of  Christianity.  Jesus  is  de- 
scribed as  the  creator  of  the  world  (Coloss.  i.  16),  the 
visible  image  of  the  invisible  God,  the  chief  and  ruler 
of  the  "  thrones,  dominions,  principalities,  and  powers," 
into  which,  in  Gnostic  phraseology,  the  emanations  of 
God  were  classified.  Or,  according  to  "  Colossians " 
and  "  Philippians,"  all  the  aeons  are  summed  up  in  him, 
in  whom  dwells  the  pleroma,  or  "  fulness  of  God."  Thus 
Jesus  is  elevated  quite  above  ordinary  humanity,  and  a 
close  approach  is  made  to  ditheism,  although  he  is  still 
emphatically  subordinated  to  God  by  being  made  the 
creator  of  the  world,  —  an  office  then  regarded  as  incom- 
patible with  absolute  divine  perfection.  In  the  cele- 
brated passage,  "  Philippians  "  ii.  6-11,  the  ason  Jesus  is 
described  as  being  the  form  or  visible  manifestation  of 
God,  yet  as  humbling  himself  by  taking  on  the  form  or 
semblance  of  humanity,  and  suffering  death,  in  return 
for  which  he  is  to  be  exalted  even  above  the  archangels. 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA.  12i 

A  similar  view  is  taken  in  "  Hebrews  " ;  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  to  the  growing  favour  with  which  these 
doctrines  were  received,  we  owe  the  omission  of  the 
miraculous  conception  from  the  gospel  of  "  Mark,"  —  a 
circumstance  which  has  misled  some  critics  into  assign- 
ing to  that  gospel  an  earlier  date  than  to  "  Matthew  " 
and  "  Luke."  Yet  the  fact  that  in  this  gospel  Jesus 
is  implicitly  ranked  above  the  angels  (Mark  xiii.  32), 
reveals  a  later  stage  of  Christologic  doctrine  than  that 
reached  by  the  first  and  third  synoptists ;  and  it  is 
altogether  probable  that,  in  accordance  with  the  notice- 
able conciliatory  disposition  of  this  evangelist,  the  su- 
pernatural conception  is  omitted  out  of  deference  to  the 
Gnosticizing  theories  of  "  Colossians  "  and  "  Philippians," 
in  which  this  materialistic  doctrine  seems  to  have  had 
no  assignable  place.  In  "  Philippians  "  especially,  many 
expressions  seem  to  verge  upon  Docetism,  the  extreme 
form  of  Gnosticism,  according  to  which  the  human  body 
of  Jesus  was  only  a  phantom.  Valentinus,  who  was 
contemporary  with  the  Pauline  writers  of  the  second 
century,  maintained  that  Jesus  was  not  born  of  Mary 
by  any  process  of  conception,  but  merely  passed  through 
her,  as  light  traverses  a  translucent  substance.  And 
finally  Marcion  (A.  D.  140)  carried  the  theory  to  its 
extreme  limits  by  declaring  that  Jesus  was  the  pure 
Pneuma  or  Spirit,  who  contained  nothing  in  common 
with  carnal  humanity. 

The  pseudo-Pauline  writers  steered  clear  of  this  ex- 
travagant doctrine,  which  erred  by  breaking  entirely 
with  historic  tradition,  and  was  consequently  soon  con- 
demned as  heretical.  Their  language,  though  unmis- 
takably Gnostic,  was  sufficiently  neutral  and  indefinite 
to  allow  of  their  combination  with  earlier  and  later 
expositions  of  dogma,  and  they  were  therefore  event- 

6 


122  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

ually  received  into  the  canon,  where  they  exhibit  a 
stage  of  opinion  midway  between  that  of  Paul  and  that 
of  the  fourth  gospel 

For  the  construction  of  a  durable  system  of  Chris- 
tology,  still  further  elaboration  was  necessary.  The 
pre-existence  of  Jesus,  as  an  emanation  from  God,  in 
whom  were  summed  up  the  attributes  of  the  pleroma  or 
full  scale  of  Gnostic  aeons,  was  now  generally  conceded. 
But  the  relation  of  this  pleroma  to  the  Godhead  of 
which  it  was  the  visible  manifestation,  needed  to  be 
more  accurately  denned.  And  here  recourse  was  had  to 
the  conception  of  the  "  Logos,"  —  a  notion  which  Philo 
had  borrowed  from  Plato,  lending  to  it  a  theosophic 
significance.  In  the  Platonic  metaphysics  objective  ex- 
istence was  attributed  to  general  terms,  the  signs  of 
general  notions.  Besides  each  particular  man,  horse,  or 
tree,  and  besides  all  men,  horses,  and  trees,  in  the  aggre- 
gate, there  was  supposed  to  exist  an  ideal  Man,  Horse, 
and  Tree.  Each  particular  man,  horse,  or  tree  consisted 
of  abstract  existence  plus  a  portion  of  the  ideal  man, 
horse,  or  tree.  Sokrates,  for  instance,  consisted  of  Ex- 
istence, plus  Animality,  plus  Humanity,  plus  Sokra- 
ticity.  The  visible  world  of  particulars  thus  existed 
only  by  virtue  of  its  participation  in  the  attributes  of 
the  ideal  world  of  universals.  God  created  the  world 
by  encumbering  each  idea  with  an  envelopment  or 
clothing  of  visible  matter ;  and  since  matter  is  vile  or 
imperfect,  all  things  are  more  or  less  perfect  as  they 
partake  more  or  less  fully  of  the  idea.  The  pure  unen- 
cumbered idea,  the  "  Idea  of  ideas,"  is  the  Logos,  or 
divine  Reason,  which  represents  the  sum-total  of  the 
activities  which  sustain  the  world,  and  serves  as  a  medi- 
ator between  the  absolutely  ideal  God  and  the  absolutely 
non-ideal  matter.  Here  we  arrive  at  a  Gnostic  concep- 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 


123 


tion,  which  the  Philonists  of  Alexandria  were  not  slow 
to  appropriate.  The  Logos,  or  divine  Reason,  was  iden- 
tified with  the  Sophia,  or  divine  Wisdom  of  the  Jewish 
Gnostics,  which  had  dwelt  with  God  before  the  creation 
of  the  world.  By  a  subtle  play  upon  the  double  mean- 
ing of  the  Greek  term  (logos  =-  "  reason  "  or  "  word  "),  a 
distinction  was  drawn  between  the  divine  Eeason  and 
the  divine  Word.  The  former  was  the  archetypal  idea 
or  thought  of  God,  existing  from  all  eternity ;  the  latter 
was  the  external  manifestation  or  realization  of  that 
idea  which  occurred  at  the  moment  of  creation,  when, 
according  to  Genesis,  God  spoke,  and  the  world  was. 

In  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  this  Philonian 
theory  was  the  one  thing  needful  to  add  metaphysical 
precision  to  the  Gnostic  and  Pauline  speculations  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  Jesus.  In  the  writings  of  Justin 
Martyr  (A.I).  150-166),  Jesus  is  for  the  first  time 
identified  with  the  Philonian  Logos  or  "  Word  of  God." 
According  to  Justin,  an  impassable  abyss  exists  between 
the  Infinite  Deity  and  the  Finite  World ;  the  one  can- 
not act  upon  the  other ;  pure  spirit  cannot  contaminate 
itself  by  contact  with  impure  matter.  To  meet  this 
difficulty,  God  evolves  from  himself  a  secondary  God, 
the  Logos,  —  yet  without  diminishing  himself  any  more 
than  a  flame  is  diminished  when  it  gives  birth  to  a 
second  flame.  Thus  generated,  like  light .  begotten  of 
light  (lumen  de  lumine),  the  Logos  creates  the  world, 
inspires  the  ancient  prophets  with  their  divine  revela- 
tions, and  finally  reveals  himself  to  mankind  in  the 
person  of  Christ.  Yet  Justin  sedulously  guards  himself 
against  ditheism,  insisting  frequently  and  emphatically 
upon  the  immeasurable  inferiority  of  the  Logos  as  com- 
pared with  the  actual  God  (o  ovrcos  0eoY). 

We  have  here  reached  very  nearly  the  ultimate  phase 


124 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 


of  New  Testament  speculation  concerning  Jesus.  The 
doctrines  enunciated  by  Justin  became  eventually,  with 
slight  modification,  the  official  doctrines  of  the  Church  ; 
yet  before  they  could  thus  be  received,  some  further 
elaboration  was  needed.  The  pre-existing  Logos-Christ 
of  Justin  was  no  longer  the  human  Messiah  of  the  first 
and  third  gospels,  born  of  a  woman,  inspired  by  the 
divine  Pneuma,  and  tempted  by  the  Devil.  There  was 
danger  that  Christologic  speculation  might  break  quite 
loose  from  historic  tradition,  and  pass  into  the  meta- 
physical extreme  of  Docetisni.  Had  this  come  to  pass, 
there  might  perhaps  have  been  a  fatal  schism  in  the 
Church.  Tradition  still  remained  Ebionitish;  dogma 
had  become  decidedly  Gnostic ;  how  were  the  two  to  be 
moulded  into  harmony  with  each  other  ?  Such  was  the 
problem  which  presented  itself  to  the  author  of  the 
fourth  gospel  (A.  D.  170-180).  As  M.  ReVille  observes, 
"  if  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  were  really  to  be  applied 
to  the  person  of  Jesus,  it  was  necessary  to  remodel  the 
evangelical  history."  Tradition  must  be  moulded  so  as 
to  fit  the  dogma,  but  the  dogma  must  be  restrained  by 
tradition  from  running  into  Docetic  extravagance.  It 
must  be  shown  historically  how  "  the  Word  became 
flesh "  and  dwelt  on  earth  (John  i.  14),  how  the  deeds 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  were  the  deeds  of  the  incarnate 
Logos,  in  whom  was  exhibited  the  pleroma  or  fulness  of 
the  divine  attributes.  The  author  of  the  fourth  gospel 
is,  like  Justin,  a  Philonian  Gnostic ;  but  he  differs  from 
Justin  in  his  bold  and  skilful  treatment  of  the  tradi- 
tional materials  supplied  by  the  earlier  gospels.  The 
process  of  development  in  the  theories  and  purposes  of 
Jesus,  which  can  be  traced  throughout  the  Messianic 
descriptions  of  the  first  gospel,  is  entirely  obliterated  in 
the  fourth.  Here  Jesus  appears  at  the  outset  as  the 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 


125 


creator  of  the  world,  descended  from  his  glory,  but  des- 
tined soon  to  be  reinstated.  The  title  "  Son  of  Man " 
has  lost  its  original  significance,  and  become  synony- 
mous with  "  Son  of  God."  The  temptation,  the  trans- 
figuration, the  scene  in  Gethsemane,  are  omitted,  and 
for  the  latter  is  substituted  a  Philonian  prayer.  Never- 
theless, the  author  carefully  avoids  the  extremes  of 
Docetism  or  ditheism.  Not  only  does  he  represent  the 
human  life  of  Jesus  as  real,  and  his  death  as  a  truly 
physical  death,  but  he  distinctly  asserts  the  inferiority 
of  the  Son  to  the  Father  (John  xiv.  28).  Indeed,  as  M. 
Eeville  well  observes,  it  is  part  of  the  very  notion  of  the 
Logos  that  it  should  be  imperfect  relatively  to  the  ab- 
solute God;  since  it  is  only  its  relative  imperfection 
which  allows  it  to  sustain  relations  to  the  world  and  to 
men  which  are  incompatible  with  absolute  perfection, 
from  the  Philonian  point  of  view.  The  Athanasian  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  finds  no  support  in  the  fourth  gos- 
pel, any  more  than  in  the  earlier  books  collected  in  the 
New  Testament. 

The  fourth  gospel  completes  the  speculative  revolu- 
tion by  which  the  conception  of  a  divine  being  lowered 
to  humanity  was  substituted  for  that  of  a  human  being 
raised  to  divinity.  We  have  here  travelled  a  long  dis- 
tance from  the  risen  Messiah  of  the  genuine  Pauline 
epistles,  or  the  preacher  of  righteousness  in  the  first 
gospel.  Yet  it  does  not  seem  probable  that  the  Church 
of  the  third  century  was  thoroughly  aware  of  the  dis- 
crepancy. The  authors  of  the  later  Christology  did  not 
regard  themselves  as  adding  new  truths  to  Christianity, 
but  merely  as  giving  a  fuller  and  more  consistent  inter- 
pretation to  what  must  have  been  known  from  the  out- 
set. They  were  so  completely  destitute  of  the  historic 
sense,  and  so  strictly  confined  to  the  dogmatic  point  of 


126  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

view,  that  they  projected  their  own  theories  back  into 
the  past,  and  vituperated  as  heretics  those  who  adhered 
to  tradition  in  its  earlier  and  simpler  form.  Examples 
from  more  recent  times  are  not  wanting,  which  show 
that  we  are  dealing  here  with  an  inveterate  tendency  of 
the  human  mind.  New  facts  and  new  theories  are  at 
first  condemned  as  heretical  or  ridiculous;  but  when 
once  firmly  established,  it  is  immediately  maintained 
that  every  one  knew  them  before.  After  the  Copernican 
astronomy  had  won  the  day,  it  was  tacitly  assumed  that 
the  ancient  Hebrew  astronomy  was  Copernican,  and  the 
Biblical  conception  of  the  universe  as  a  kind  of  three- 
story  house  was  ignored,  and  has  been,  except  by  schol- 
ars, quite  forgotten.  When  the  geologic  evidence  of  the 
earth's  immense  antiquity  could  no  longer  be  gainsaid, 
it  was  suddenly  ascertained  that  the  Bible  had  from  the 
outset  asserted  that  antiquity ;  and  in  our  own  day  we 
have  seen  an  elegant  popular  writer  perverting  the  testi- 
mony of  the  rocks  and  distorting  the  Elohistic  cosmog- 
ony of  the  Pentateuch,  until  the  twain  have  been  made 
to  furnish  what  Bacon  long  ago  described  as  "  a  heretical 
religion  and  a  false  philosophy."  Now  just  as  in  the 
popular  thought  of  the  present  day  the  ancient  Elohist 
is  accredited  with  a  knowledge  of  modern  geology  and 
astronomy,  so  in  the  opinion  of  the  fourth  evangelist 
and  his  contemporaries  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos-Christ 
was  implicitly  contained  in  the  Old  Testament  and  in 
the  early  traditions  concerning  Jesus,  and  needed  only 
to  be  brought  into  prominence  by  a  fresh  interpretation. 
Hence  arose  the  fourth  gospel,  which  was  no  more  a 
conscious  violation  of  historic  data  than  Hugh  Miller's 
imaginative  description  of  the  "  Mosaic  Vision  of  Crea- 
tion." Its  metaphysical  discourses  were  readily  accepted 
as  equally  authentic  with  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 


THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 


127 


Its  Philonian  doctrines  were  imputed  to  Paul  and  the 
apostles,  the  pseudo-Pauline  epistles  furnishing  the  need- 
ful texts.  The  Ebionites  —  who  were  simply  Judaizing 
Christians,  holding  in  nearly  its  original  form  the  doc- 
trine of  Peter,  James,  and  John  —  were  ejected  from  the 
Church  as  the  most  pernicious  of  heretics ;  and  so  com- 
pletely was  their  historic  position  misunderstood  and 
forgotten,  that,  in  order  to  account  for  their  existence,  it 
became  necessary  to  invent  an  eponymous  heresiarch, 
Ebion,  who  was  supposed  to  have  led  them  astray  from 
the  true  faith ! 

The  Christology  of  the  fourth  gospel  is  substantially 
the  same  as  that  which  was  held  in  the  next  two  centu- 
ries by  Tertullian,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen,  and 
Arius.  When  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  first  an- 
nounced by  Sabellius  (A.  D.  250-260),  it  was  formally 
condemned  as  heretical,  the  Church  being  not  yet  quite 
prepared  to  receive  it.  In  269  the  Council  of  Antioch 
solemnly  declared  that  the  Son  was  not  consubstantial 
with  the  Father,  —  a  declaration  which,  within  sixty 
years,  the  Council  of  Nikaia  was  destined  as  solemnly  to 
contradict.  The  Trinitarian  Christology  struggled  long 
for  acceptance,  and  did  not  finally  win  the  victory  until 
the  end  of  the  fourth  century.  Yet  from  the  outset  its 
ultimate  victory  was  hardly  doubtful.  The  peculiar 
doctrines  of  the  fourth  gospel  could  retain  their  integ- 
rity only  so  long  as  Gnostic  ideas  were  prevalent. 
When  Gnosticism  declined  in  importance,  and  its  the- 
ories faded  out  of  recollection,  its  peculiar  phraseology 
received  of  necessity  a  new  interpretation.  The  doc- 
trine that  God  could  not  act  directly  upon  the  world 
sank  gradually  into  oblivion  as  the  Church  grew  more 
and  more  hostile  to  the  Neo-Platonic  philosophy.  And 
when  this  theory  was  once  forgotten,  it  was  inevitable 


I2g  THE  CHRIST  OF  DOGMA. 

that  the  Logos,  as  the  creator  of  the  world,  should  be 
raised  to  an  equality  or  identity  with  God  himself.  In 
the  view  of  the  fourth  evangelist,  the  Creator  was  neces- 
sarily inferior  to  God;  in  the  view  of  later  ages,  the 
Creator  could  be  none  other  than  God.  And  so  the 
very  phrases  which  had  most  emphatically  asserted  the 
subordination  of  the  Son  were  afterward  interpreted  as 
asserting  his  absolute  divinity.  To  the  Gnostic  formula, 
lumen  de  lumine,  was  added  the  Athanasian  scholium, 
Deum  verum  de  Deo  vero ;  and  the  Trinitarian  dogma 
of  the  union  of  persons  in  a  single  Godhead  became 
thus  the  only  available  logical  device  for  preserving  the 
purity  of  monotheism. 

February,  1870. 


V. 

A  WOED  ABOUT  MIEACLES* 

IT  is  the  lot  of  every  book  which  attempts  to  treat  the 
origin  and  progress  of  Christianity  in  a  sober  and 
scientific  spirit,  to  meet  with  unsparing  attacks.  Critics 
in  plenty  are  always  to  be  found,  who,  possessed  with 
the  idea  that  the  entire  significance  and  value  of  the 
Christian  religion  are  demolished  unless  we  regard  it  as 
a  sort  of  historical  monstrosity,  are  only  too  eager  to 
subject  the  offending  work  to  a  scathing  scrutiny,  dis- 
playing withal  a  modicum  of  righteous  indignation  at 
the  unblushing  heresy  of  the  author,  not  unmixed  with 
a  little  scornful  pity  at  his  inability  to  believe  very  pre- 
posterous stories  upon  very  meagre  evidence.  "  Con- 
servative "  polemics  of  this  sort  have  doubtless  their 
function.  They  serve  to  purge  scientific  literature  of 
the  awkward  and  careless  statements  too  often  made  by 
writers  not  sufficiently  instructed  or  cautious,  which  in 
the  absence  of  hostile  criticism  might  get  accepted  by 
the  unthinking  reader  along  with  the  truths  which  they 
accompany.  Most  scientific  and  philosophical  works 
have  their  defects;  and  it  is  fortunate  that  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  dogmatic  ardour  in  the  world,  ever  sharpen- 
ing its  wits  to  the  utmost,  that  it  may  spy  each  lurking 
inaccuracy  and  ruthlessly  drag  it  to  light.  But  this 

*  These  comments  on  Mr.  Henry  Eogers's  review  of  M.  Kenan's  Les 
Ap&tres,  contained  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Lewes,  were  shortly  afterwards 
published  by  him  in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  September  15,  1866. 


130 


A    WORD  ABOUT  MIRACLES. 


useful  spirit  is  wont  to  lead  those  who  are  inspired  by 
it  to  shoot  beyond  the  mark,  and  after  pointing  out  the 
errors  of  others,  to  commit  fresh  mistakes  of  their  own. 
In  the  skilful  criticism  of  M.  Renan's  work  on  the 
Apostles,  in  No.  29  of  the  "  Fortnightly  Review  "  there 
is  now  and  then  a  vulnerable  spot  through  which  a  con- 
troversial shaft  may  perhaps  be  made  to  pierce. 

It  may  be  true  that  Lord  Lyttelton's  tract  on  the 
Conversion  of  St.  Paul,  as  Dr.  Johnson  and  Mr.  Eogers 
have  said,  has  never  yet  been  refuted;  but  if  I  may 
judge  from  my  own  recollection  of  the  work,  I  should 
say  that  this  must  be  because  no  competent  writer  ever 
thought  it  worth  his  pains  to  criticize  it.  Its  argument 
contains  about  as  much  solid  consistency  as  a  distended 
balloon,  and  collapses  as  readily  at  the  first  puncture. 
It  attempts  to  prove,  first,  that  the  conversion  of  St. 
Paul  cannot  be  made  intelligible  except  on  the  assump- 
tion that  there  was  a  miracle  in  the  case;  and  secondly, 
that  if  Paul  was  converted  by  a  miracle,  the  truth  of 
Christianity  is  impregnable.  Now,  if  the  first  of  these 
points  be  established,  the  demonstration  is  not  yet  com- 
plete, for  the  second  point  must  be  proved  independ- 
ently. But  if  the  first  point  be  overthrown,  the  second 
loses  its  prop,  and  falls  likewise. 

Great  efforts  are  therefore  made  to  show  that  no 
natural  influences  could  have  intervened  to  bring  about 
a  change  in  the  feelings  of  Paul.  He  was  violent, 
"  thorough,"  unaffected  by  pity  or  remorse  ;  and  accord- 
ingly he  could  not  have  been  so  completely  altered  as 
he  was,  had  he  not  actually  beheld  the  risen  Christ : 
such  is  the .  argument  which  Mr.  Eogers  deems  so  con- 
clusive. I  do  not  know  that  from  any  of  Paul's  own 
assertions  we  are  entitled  to  affirm  that  no  shade  of 
remorse  had  ever  crossed  liis  mind  previous  to  the 


A    WORD  ABOUT  MIRACLES.  131 

vision  near  Damascus.  But  waiving  this  point,  I  do 
maintain  that,  granting  Paul's  feelings  to  have  been  as 
Mr.  Rogers  thinks  they  were,  his  conversion  is  inex- 
plicable, even  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  miracle.  He  that 
is  determined  not  to  believe,  will  not  believe,  though 
one  should  rise  from  the  dead.  To  make  Paul  a  be- 
liever, it  was  not  enough  that  he  should  meet  his  Lord 
face  to  face :  he  must  have  been  already  prepared  to 
believe.  Otherwise  he  would  have  easily  found  means 
of  explaining  the  miracle  from  his  own  point  of  view. 
He  would  certainly  have  attributed  it  to  the  wiles  of 
the  demon,  even  as  the  Pharisees  are  said  to  have  done 
with  regard  to  the  miraculous  cures  performed  by  Jesus. 
A  "  miraculous "  occurrence  in  those  days  did  not  as- 
tonish as  it  would  at  present.  "  Miracles  "  were  rather 
the  order  of  the  day,  and  in  fact  were  lavished  with 
such  extreme  bounty  on  all  hands,  that  their  convin- 
cing power  was  very  slight.  Neither  side  ever  thought 
of  disputing  the  reality  of  the  miracles  supposed  to  be 
performed  on  the  other ;  but  each  side  considered  the 
miracles  of  its  antagonist  to  be  the  work  of  diabolic 
agencies.  Such  being  the  case,  it  is  useless  to  suppose 
that  Paul  could  have  distinguished  between  a  true  and 
a  false  miracle,  or  that  a  real  miracle  could  of  itself 
have  had  any  effect  in  inducing  him  to  depart  from  his 
habitual  course  of  belief  and  action.  As.  far  as  Paul's 
mental  operations  were  concerned,  it  could  have  made 
no  difference  whether  he  met  with  his  future  Master  in 
person,  or  merely  encountered  him  in  a  vision.  The 
sole  point  to  be  considered  is  whether  or  not  he  believed 
in  the  Divine  character  and  authority  of  the  event  which 
had  happened.  What  the  event  might  have  really  been 
was  of  no  practical  consequence  to  him  or  to  any  one 
else.  What  he  believed  it  to  be  was  of  the  first  im- 


132 


A    WORD  ABOUT  MIRACLES. 


portance.  And  since  he  did  believe  that  he  had  been 
divinely  summoned  to  cease  persecuting,  and  commence 
preaching  the  new  faith,  it  follows  that  his  state  of 
mind  must  have  been  more  or  less  affected  by  circum- 
stances other  than  the  mere  vision.  Had  he  not  been 
ripe  for  change,  neither  shadow  nor  substance  could 
have  changed  him. 

This  view  of  the  case  is  by  no  means  so  extravagant 
as  Mr.  Rogers  would  have  us  suppose.  There  is  no 
reason  for  believing  that  Paul's  character  was  essen- 
tially different  afterwards  from  what  it  had  been  before. 
The  very  fervour  which  caused  him,  as  a  Pharisee,  to 
exclude  all  but  orthodox  Jews  from  the  hope  of  salva- 
tion, would  lead  him,  as  a  Christian,  to  carry  the  Chris- 
tian idea  to  its  extreme  development,  and  admit  all 
persons  whatever  to  the  privileges  of  the  Church.  The 
same  zeal  for  the  truth  which  had  urged  him  to  perse- 
cute the  Christians  unto  the  death  afterwards  led  him 
to  spare  no  toil  and  shun  no  danger  which  might  bring 
about  the  triumph  of  their  cause.  It  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  the  persecutor  and  the  martyr  are  but  one 
and  the  same  man  under  different  circumstances.  He 
who  is  ready  to  die  for  his  own  faith  will  sometimes 
think  it  fair  to  make  other  men  die  for  theirs.  Men  of  a 
vehement  and  fiery  temperament,  moreover,  —  such  as 
Paul  always  was, —  never  change  their  opinions  slowly, 
never  rest  in  philosophic  doubt,  never  take  a  middle 
course.  If  they  leave  one  extreme  for  an  instant,  they 
are  drawn  irresistibly  to  the  other;  and  usually  very 
little  is  needed  to  work  the  change.  The  conversion 
of  Omar  is  a  striking  instance  in  point,  and  has  been 
cited  by  M.  Eenan  himself.  The  character  of  Omar 
bears  a  strong  likeness  to  that  of  Paul.  Previous  to  his 
conversion,  he  was  a  conscientious  and  virulent  perse- 


A    WORD  ABOUT  MIRACLES. 


133 


cutor  of  Mohammedanism.*  After  his  conversion,  he 
was  Mohammed's  most  efficient  disciple,  and  it  may 
be  safely  asserted  that  for  disinterestedness  and  sell- 
abnegation  he  was  not  inferior  to  the  Apostle  of  the 
Gentiles.  The  change  in  his  case  was,  moreover,  quite 
as  sudden  and  unexpected  as  it  was  with  Paul ;  it  was 
neither  more  nor  less  incomprehensible ;  and  if  Paul's 
conversion  needs  a  miracle  to  explain  it,  Omar's  must 
need  one  likewise.  But  in  truth,  there  is  no  difficulty  in 
the  Case,  save  that  which  stupid  dogmatism  has  created. 
The  conversions  of  Paul  and  Omar  are  paralleled  by 
innumerable  events  which  occur  in  every  period  of  re- 
ligious or  political  excitement.  Far  from  being  extraor- 
dinary, or  inexplicable  on  natural  grounds,  such  phenom- 
ena are  just  what  might  occasionally  be  looked  for. 

But,  says  Mr.  Rogers,  "  is  it  possible  for  a  moment 
to  imagine  the  doting  and  dreaming  victim  of  halluci- 
nations (which  M.  Renan's  theory  represents  Paul)  to 
be  the  man  whose  masculine  sense,  strong  logic,  prac- 
tical prudence,  and  high  administrative  talent  appear 
in  the  achievements  of  his  life,  and  in  the  Epistles  he 
has  left  behind  him  ? "  M.  Renan's  theory  does  not, 
however,  represent  Paul  as  the  "victim  of  hallucina- 
tions "  to  a  greater  degree  than  Mohammed.  The  latter, 
as  every  one  knows,  laboured  during  much  of  his  life 
under  almost  constant  "  hallucination  "  ;  yet  "  masculine 
sense,  strong  logic,"  etc.,  were  qualities  quite  as  con- 
spicuous in  him  as  in  St.  Paul. 

Here,  as  throughout  his  essay,  Mr.  Rogers  shows 
himself  totally  unable  to  comprehend  the  mental  con- 
dition of  men  in  past  ages.  If  an  Apostle  has  a  dream 
or  sees  a  vision,  and  interprets  it  according  to  the  ideas 
of  his  time  and  country,  instead  of  according  to  the 

*  Saint-Hilaire  :  Mahomet  et  le  Goran,  p.  109. 


134  A    WQRD  ABOUT  MIRACLES. 

ideas  of  scientific  England  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
Mr.  Kogers  thinks  he  must  needs  be  mad :  and  when, 
according  to  the  well-known  law  that  mental  excite- 
ment is  contagious,*  several  persons  are  said  to  have 
concurred  in  interpreting  some  phenomenon  supernat- 
urally,  Mr.  Eogers  cannot  see  why  so  many  people 
should  all  go  mad  at  once !  "  To  go  mad,"  in  fact,  is 
his  favourite  designation  for  a  mental  act,  which  nearly 
all  the  human  race  have  habitually  performed  in  all 
ages;  the  act  of  mistaking  subjective  impressions  for 
outward  realities.  The  disposition  to  regard  all  strange 
phenomena  as  manifestations  of  supernatural  power  was 
universally  prevalent  in  the  first  century  of  Christian- 
ity, and  long  after.  Neither  greatness  of  intellect  nor 
thoroughness  of  scepticism  gave  exemption.  Even 
Julius  Csesar,  the  greatest  practical  genius  that  ever 
lived,  was  somewhat  superstitious,  despite  his  atheism 
and  his  vigorous  common-sense.  It  is  too  often  argued 
that  the  prevalence  of  scepticism  in  the  Roman  Empire 
must  have  made  men  scrupulous  about  accepting  mir- 
acles. By  no  means.  Nothing  but  physical  science 
ever  drives  out  miracles:  mere  doctrinal  scepticism  is 
powerless  to  do  it.  In  the  age  of  the  Apostles,  little 
if  any  radical  distinction  was  drawn  between  a  miracle 
and  an  ordinary  occurrence.  No  one  supposed  a  miracle 
to  be  an  infraction  of  the  laws  of  nature,  for  no  one  had 
a  clear  idea  that  there  were  such  things  as  laws  of  na- 
ture. A  miracle  was  simply  an  extraordinary  act,  ex- 
hibiting the  power  of  the  person  who  performed  it. 
Blank,  indeed,  would  the  evangelists  have  looked,  had 
any  one  told  them  what  an  enormous  theory  of  syste- 
matic meddling  with  nature  was  destined  to  grow  out  of 
their  beautiful  and  artless  narratives. 

*  Hecker's  Epidemics  of  the  Middle  Ages,  pp.  87-152. 


A    WORD  ABOUT  MIRACLES.  ^5 

The  incapacity  to  appreciate  this  frame  of  mind 
renders  the  current  arguments  in  behalf  of  miracles 
utterly  worthless.  From  the  fact  that  Celsus  and  others 
never  denied  the  reality  of  the  Christian  miracles,  it  is 
commonly  inferred  that  those  miracles  must  have  actu- 
ally happened.  The  same  argument  would,  however, 
equally  apply  to  the  miracles  of  Apollonius  and  Simon 
Magus,  for  the  Christians  never  denied  the  reality  of 
these.  What  these  facts  really  prove  is  that  the  state 
of  human  intelligence  was  as  I  have  just  described  it : 
and  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from  them  is  that  no 
miraculous  account  emanating  from  an  author  of  such 
a  period  is  worthy  of  serious  attention.  When  Mr. 
Eogers  supposes  that  if  the  miracles  had  not  really  hap- 
pened they  would  have  been  challenged,  he  is  assuming 
that  a  state  of  mind  existed  in  which  it  was  possible 
for  miracles  to  be  challenged ;  and  thus  commits  an 
anachronism  as  monstrous  as  if  he  had  attributed  the 
knowledge  of  some  modern  invention,  such  as  steam- 
boats, to  those  early  ages. 

Mr.  Eogers  seems  to  complain  of  M.  Renan  for 
"  quietly  assuming  "  that  miracles  are  invariably  to  be 
rejected.  Certainly  a  historian  of  the  present  day  who 
should  not  make  such  an  assumption  would  betray  his 
lack  of  the  proper  qualifications  for  his  profession.  It 
is  not  considered  necessary  for  every  writer  to  begin  his 
work  by  setting  out  to  prove  the  first  principles  of  histor- 
ical criticism.  They  are  taken  for  granted.  And,  as  M. 
Eenan  justly  says,  a  miracle  is  one  of  those  things  which 
must  be  disbelieved  until  it  is  proved.  The  onus  pro- 
bandi  lies  on  the  assertor  of  a  fact  which,  conflicts  with 
universal  experience.  Nevertheless,  the  great  number 
of  intelligent  persons  who,  even  now,  from  dogmatic  rea- 
sons, accept  the  New  Testament  miracles,  forbids  that 


A    WORD  ABOUT  MIRACLES. 

they  should  be  passed  over  in  silence  like  similar  phe- 
nomena elsewhere  narrated.  But,  in  the  present  state 
of  historical  science,  the  arguing  against  miracles  is,  as 
Colet  remarked  of  his  friend  Erasmus's  warfare  against 
the  Thomists  and  Scotists  of  Cambridge,  "a  contest 
more  necessary  than  glorious  or  difficult."  To  be  satis- 
factorily established,  a  miracle  needs  at  least  to  be 
recorded  by  an  eyewitness ;  and  the  mental  attain- 
ments of  the  witness  need  to  be  thoroughly  known 
besides.  Unless  he  has  a  clear  conception  of  the  differ- 
ence between  the  natural  and  the  unnatural  order  of 
events,  his  testimony,  however  unimpeachable  on  the 
score  of  honesty,  is  still  worthless.  To  say  that  this 
condition  was  fulfilled  by  those  who  described  the  New 
Testament  miracles,  would  be  absurd.  And  in  the  face 
of  what  German  criticism  has  done  for  the  early  Chris- 
tian documents,  it  would  be  an  excess  of  temerity  to 
assert  that  any  one  of  the  supernatural  accounts  con- 
tained in  them  rests  on  contemporary  authority.  Of  all 
history,  the  miraculous  part  should  be  attested  by  the 
strongest  testimony,  whereas  it  is  invariably  attested  by 
the  weakest.  And  the  paucity  of  miracles  wherever  we 
have  contemporary  records,  as  in  the  case  of  primitive 
Islamism,  is  a  most  significant  fact. 

In  attempting  to  defend  his  principle  of  never  accept- 
ing a  miracle,  M.  Eenan  has  indeed  got  into  a  sorry 
plight,  and  Mr.  Eogers,  in  controverting  him,  has  not 
greatly  helped  the  matter.  By  stirring  M.  Kenan's  be- 
muddled  pool,  Mr.  Rogers  has  only  bemuddled  it  the 
more.  Neither  of  these  excellent  writers  seems  to  sus- 
pect that  transmutation  of  species,  the  geologic  develop- 
ment of  the  earth,  and  other  like  phenomena  do  not 
present  features  conflicting  with  ordinary  experience. 
Sir  Charles  Lyell  and  Mr.  Darwin  would  be  greatly 


A    WORD  ABOUT  MIRACLES. 


137 


astonished  to  be  told  that  their  theories  of  inorganic 
and  organic  evolution  involved  any  agencies  not  known 
to  exist  in  the  present  course  of  nature.  The  great 
achievement  of  these  writers  has  been  to  show  that  all 
past  changes  of  the  earth  and  its  inhabitants  are  to  be 
explained  as  resulting  from  the  continuous  action  of 
causes  like  those  now  in  operation,  and  that  throughout 
there  has  been  nothing  even  faintly  resembling  a  mir- 
acle. M.  Eenan  may  feel  perfectly  safe  in  extending 
his  principle  back  to  the  beginning  of  things ;  and  Mr. 
Eogers's  argument,  even  if  valid  against  M.  Eenan,  does 
not  help  his  own  case  in  the  least. 

On  some  points,  indeed,  M.  Eenan  has  laid  him- 
self open  to  severe  criticism,  and  on  other  points  he 
has  furnished  good  handles  for  his  orthodox  opponents. 
His  views  in  regard  to  the  authorship  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  and  the  Acts  are  not  likely  to  be  endorsed  by 
many  scholars ;  and  his  revival  of  the  rationalistic 
absurdities  of  Paulus  merits  in  most  instances  all  that 
Mr.  Eogers  has  said  about  it.  As  was  said  at  the  out- 
set, orthodox  criticisms  upon  heterodox  books  are  always 
welcome.  They  do  excellent  service.  And  with  the 
feeling  which  impels  their  authors  to  defend  their  favour- 
ite dogmas  with  every  available  weapon  of  controversy, 
I  for  one  can  heartily  sympathize.  Their  zeal  in  up- 
holding what  they  consider  the  truth  is  greatly  to  be 
respected  and  admired.  But  so  much  cannot  always 
be  said  for  the  mode  of  argumentation  they  adopt,  which 
too  often  justifies  M.  Eenan's  description,  when  he  says, 
"  Eaisonnements  triomphants  sur  des  choses  que  1'adver- 
saire  n'a  pas  dites,  cris  de  victoire  sur  des  erreurs  qu'il 
n'a  pas  commises,  rien  ne  parait  deloyal  a  celui  qui  croit 
tenir  en  main  les  interets  de  la  ve'rite  absolue." 

August,  1866. 


VI. 

DEAPEE   ON  SCIENCE  AND  EELIGION* 

SOME  twelve  years  ago,  Dr.  Draper  published  a 
bulky  volume  entitled  "  A  History  of  the  Intellec- 
tual Development  of  Europe,"  in  which  his  professed 
purpose  was  to  show  that  nations  or  races  pass  through 
certain  definable  epochs  of  development,  analogous  to 
the  periods  of  infancy,  childhood,  youth,  manhood,  and 
old  age  in  individuals.  But  while  announced  with  due 
formality,  the  carrying  out  of  the  argument  was  left  for 
the  most  part  to  the  headings  and  running-titles  of  the 
several  chapters,  while  in  the  text  the  author  peacefully 
meandered  along  down  the  stream  of  time,  giving  us  a 
succession  of  pleasant  though  somewhat  threadbare  an- 
ecdotes, as  well  as  a  superabundance  of  detached  and 
fragmentary  opinions  on  divers  historical  events,  having 
apparently  quite  forgotten  that  he  had  started  with  a 
thesis  to  prove.  In  the  arrangement  of  his  "running 
heads,"  some  points  were  sufficiently  curious  to  require 
a  word  of  explanation,  as,  for  example,  when  the  early 
ages  of  Christianity  were  at  one  time  labelled  as  an 
epoch  of  progress  and  at  another  time  as  an  epoch  of 
decrepitude.  But  the  argument  and  the  contents  never 
got  so  far  en  rapport  with  each  other  as  to  clear  up  such 

*  History  of  the  Conflict  between  Religion  and  Science.  By  Jolm 
William  Draper,  M.  D.,  LL.  D.  Fourth  edition.  New  York  :  D. 
Appleton  &  Co.  1875.  12mo,  pp.  xxii.,  373.  (International  Scien- 
tific Series,  XII.) 


DRAPER   ON  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION. 


139 


points  as  this.  On  the  contrary,  each  kept  on  the  even 
teuour  of  its  way  without  much  regard  to  the  other. 
From  the  titles  of  the  chapters  one  was  led  to  expect 
some  comprehensive  theory  of  European  civilization 
continuously  expounded.  But  the  text  merely  showed 
a  great  quantity  of  superficial  and  second-hand  informa- 
tion, serving  to  illustrate  the  mental  idiosyncrasies  of 
the  author.  Among  these  idiosyncrasies  might  be  noted 
a  very  inadequate  understanding  of  the  part  played  by 
Home  in  the  work  of  civilization,  a  singular  lack  of  ap- 
preciation of  the  political  and  philosophical  achieve- 
ments of  Greece  under  Athenian  leadership,  a  strong 
hostility  to  the  Catholic  Church,  a  curious  disposition 
to  overrate  semi-barbarous  or  abortive  civilizations,  such 
as  those  of  the  old  Asiatic  and  native  American  com- 
munities, at  the  expense  of  Europe,  and,  above  all,  an 
undiscriminating  admiration  for  everything,  great  or 
small,  that  has  ever  worn  the  garb  of  Islam  or  been 
associated  with  the  career  of  the  Saracens.  The  dis- 
covery that  in  some  respects  the  Mussulmans  of  the 
Middle  Ages  were  more  highly  cultivated  than  their 
Christian  contemporaries,  has  made  such  an  impression 
on  Dr.  Draper's  mind  that  it  seems  to  be  as  hard  for 
him  to  get  rid  of  it  as  it  was  for  Mr.  Dick  to  keep  the 
execution  of  Charles  I.  out  of  his  "  Memorial."  Even 
in  an  essay  on  the  "  Civil  Policy  of  America,"  the  tur- 
baned  sage  figures  quite  prominently;  and  it  is  need- 
less to  add  that  he  reappears,  as  large  as  life,  when  the 
subject  of  discussion  is  the  attitude  of  science  toward 
religion. 

Speaking  briefly  with  regard  to  this  matter,  we  may 
freely  admit  that  the  work  done  by  the  Arabs,  in  scien- 
tific inquiry  as  well  as  in  the  making  of  events,  was 
very  considerable.  It  was  a  work,  too,,  the  value  of 


I40  DRAPER   ON  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION. 

which  is  not  commonly  appreciated  in  the  accounts  of 
European  history  written  for  the  general  reader,  and  we 
have  no  disposition  to  find  fault  with  Dr.  Draper  for 
describing  it  with  enthusiasm.  The  philosophers  of 
Bagdad  and  Cordova  did  excellent  service  in  keeping 
alive  the  traditions  of  Greek  physical  inquiry  at  a  time 
when  Christian  thinkers  were  too  exclusively  occupied 
with  transcendental  speculations  in  theology  and  logic. 
In  some  departments,  as  in  chemistry  and  astronomy, 
they  made  original  discoveries  of  considerable  value; 
and  if  we  turn  from  abstract  knowledge  to  the  arts  of 
life,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  mediaeval  Mussulmans 
had  reached  a  higher  plane  of  material  comfort  than 
their  Christian  contemporaries.  In  short,  the  work  of 
all  kinds  done  by  these  people  wrould  furnish  the  judi- 
cious advocate  of  the  claims  of  the  Semitic  race  with 
materials  for  a  pleasing  and  instructive  picture.  Dr. 
Draper,  however,  errs,  though  no  doubt  unintentionally, 
by  so  presenting  the  case  as  to  leave  upon  the  reader's 
mind  the  impression  that  all  this  scientific  and  practical 
achievement  was  the  work  of  Islamism,  and  that  the 
Mohammedan  civilization  was  of  a  higher  type  than  the 
Christian.  It  is  with  an  apparent  feeling  of  regret  that 
he  looks  upon  the  ousting  of  the  Moors  from  dominion 
in  Spain ;  but  this  is  a  mistaken  view.  As  regards 
the  first  point,  it  is  a  patent  fact  that  scientific  inquiry 
was  conducted  at  the  cost  of  as  much  theological  ob- 
loquy in  the  Mohammedan  as  in  the  Christian  world. 
It  is  true  there  was  more  actual  tolerance  of  heresy  on 
the  part  of  Moslem  governments  than  was  customary  in 
Europe  in  those  days ;  but  this  is  a  superficial  fact,  which 
does  not  indicate  any  superiority  in  Moslem  popular 
sentiment.  The  caliphate  or  emirate  was  a  truly  ab- 
solute despotism,  such  as  the  Papacy  has  never  been, 


DRAPER  ON  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION.  1^1 

and  the  conduct  of  a  sceptical  emir  in  encouraging 
scientific  inquiry  goes  but  little  way  toward  proving 
anything  like  a  general  prevalence  of  tolerance  or  of 
free-thinking.  And  this  brings  us  to  the  second  point, 
—  that  Mohammedan  civilization  was,  on  the  whole, 
rather  a  skin-deep  affair.  It  was  superficial  because  of 
that  extreme  severance  between  government  and  people 
which  has  never  existed  in  European  nations  within 
historic  times,  but  which  has  always  existed  among  the 
principal  races  that  have  professed  Moslemism.  No- 
where in  the  Mohammedan  world  has  there  ever  been 
what  we  call  a  national  life,  and  nowhere  do  we  find  in 
its  records  any  trace  of  such  an  intellectual  impulse, 
thrilling  through  every  fibre  of  the  people  and  begetting 
prodigious  achievements  in  art,  poetry,  and  philosophy, 
as  was  awakened  in  Europe  in  the  thirteenth  century 
and  again  in  the  fifteenth.  Under  the  peculiar  form  of 
unlimited  material  and  spiritual  despotism  exemplified 
in  the  caliphate,  a  few  men  may  discover  gases  or  com- 
ment on  Aristotle,  but  no  general  movement  toward 
political  progress  or  philosophical  inquiry  is  possible. 
Such  a  society  is  rigid  and  inorganic  at  bottom,  what- 
ever scanty  signs  of  flexibility  and  life  it  may  show 
at  the  surface.  There  is  no  better  illustration  of  this, 
when  well  considered,  than  the  fact  that  Moorish  civi- 
lization remained,  politically  and  intellectually,  a  mere 
excrescence  in  Spain,  after  having  been  fastened  down 
over  half  the  country  for  nearly  eight  centuries. 

But  we  are  in  danger  of  forgetting  our  main  theme,  as 
Dr.  Draper  seems  to  do,  while  we  linger  with  him  over 
these  interesting  wayside  topics.  We  may  perhaps  be 
excused,  however,  if  we  have  not  yet  made  any  very 
explicit  allusion  to  the  "  Conflict  between  Religion  and 
Science,"  because  this  work  seems  to  be 'in  the  main  a 


142 


DRAPER  ON  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION. 


repetition  en  petit  of  the  "  Intellectual  Development  of 
Europe,"  and  what  we  have  said  will  apply  as  well  to 
one  as  to  the  other.  In  the  little  book,  as  in  the  big 
one,  we  hear  a  great  deal  about  the  Arabs,  and  some- 
thing about  Columbus  and  Galileo,  who  made  men 
accept  sundry  truths  in  the  teeth  of  clerical  opposition  ; 
and,  as  before,  we  float  gently  down  the  current  of  his- 
tory without  being  over  W7ell-informed  as  to  the  precise 
didactic  purpose  of  our  voyage.  Here,  indeed,  even  our 
headings  and  running-titles  do  not  materially  help  us, 
for  though  we  are  supposed  to  be  witnessing,  or  mayhap 
assisting  in,  a  perennial  conflict  between  "  science  "  and 
"  religion,"  we  are  nowhere  enlightened  as  to  what  the 
cause  or  character  of  this  conflict  is,  nor  are  we  enabled 
to  get  a  good  look  at  either  of  the  parties  to  the  strife. 
With  regard  to  "  religion  "  especially  are  we  left  in  the 
dark.  What  this  dreadful  thing  is  towards  which  "  sci- 
ence "  is  always  playing  the  part  of  Herakles  towards 
the  Lernaean  Hydra,  we  are  left  to  gather  from  the  course 
of  the  narrative.  Yet,  in  a  book  with  any  valid  claim 
to  clearsightedness,  one  would  think  such  a  point  as 
this  ought  to  receive  very  explicit  preliminary  treat- 
ment. 

The  course  of  the  narrative,  however,  leaves  us  in  little 
doubt  as  to  what  Dr.  Draper  means  by  a  conflict  be- 
tween science  and  religion.  When  he  enlarges  on  the 
trite  story  of  Galileo,  and  alludes  to  the  more  modern 
quarrel  between  the  Church  and  the  geologists,  and  does 
this  in  the  belief  that  he  is  thereby  illustrating  an  an- 
tagonism between  religion  and  science,  it  is  obvious  that 
he  identifies  the  cause  of  the  anti-geologists  and  the 
persecutors  of  Galileo  with  the  cause  of  religion.  The 
word  "religion"  is  to  him  a  symbol  which  stands  for 
unenlightened  bigotry  or  narrow-minded  unwillingness 


DRAPER  ON  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION. 


143 


to  look  facts  in  the  face.  Such  a  conception  of  religion 
is  common  enough,  and  unhappily  a  great  deal  has  been 
done  to  strengthen  it  by  the  very  persons  to  whom  the 
interests  of  religion  are  presumed  to  be  a  professional 
care.  It  is  nevertheless  a  very  superficial  conception, 
and  no  book  which  is  vitiated  by  it  can  have  much 
philosophic  value.  It  is  simply  the  crude  impression 
which,  in  minds  unaccustomed  to  analysis,  is  left  by  the 
fact  that  theologians  and  other  persons  interested  in 
religion  are  usually  alarmed  at  new  scientific  truths, 
and  resist  them  with  emotions  so  highly  wrought  that 
they  are  not  only  incapable  of  estimating  evidence,  but 
often  also  have  their  moral  sense  impaired,  and  fight 
with  foul  means  when  fair  ones  fail.  If  we  reflect  care- 
fully on  this  class  of  phenomena,  we  shall  see  that 
something  besides  mere  pride  of  opinion  is  involved 
in  the  struggle.  At  the  bottom  of  changing  theological 
beliefs  there  lies  something  which  men  perennially 
value,  and  for  the  sake  of  which  they  cling  to  the  beliefs 
as  long  as  possible.  That  which  they  value  is  not  itself 
a  matter  of  belief,  but  it  is  a  matter  of  conduct ;  it  is 
the  searching  after  goodness,  —  after  a  higher  life  than 
the  mere  satisfaction  of  individual  desires.  All  animals 
seek  for  fulness  of  life ;  but  in  civilized  man  this  crav- 
ing has  acquired  a  moral  significance,  and  has  become 
a  spiritual  aspiration;  and  this  emotional  tendency, 
more  or  less  strong  in  the  human  race,  we  call  religious 
feeling  or  religion.  Viewed  in  this  light,  religion  is  not 
only  something  that  mankind  is  never  likely  to  get  rid 
of,  but  it  is  incomparably  the  most  noble  as  well  as  the 
most  useful  attribute  of  humanity. 

Now,  this  emotional  prompting  toward  completeness 
of  life  requires,  of  course,  that  conduct  should  be  guided, 
as  far  as  possible,  in  accordance  with  a  true  theory  of  the 


144 


DRAPER   ON  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION. 


relations  of  man  to  the  world  in  which  he  lives.  Hence, 
at  any  given  era  the  religious  feeling  will  always  be 
found  enlisted  in  behalf  of  some  theory  of  the  universe. 
At  any  time,  whatever  may  be  their  shortcomings  in 
practice,  religious  men  will  aim  at  doing  right  according 
to  their  conceptions  of  the  order  of  the  world.  If  men's 
conceptions  of  the  order  of  nature  remained  constant, 
no  apparent  conflict  between  their  religious  feelings  and 
their  knowledge  need  ever  arise.  But  with  the  first 
advance  in  our  knowledge  of  nature  the  case  is  altered. 
New  and  strange  theories  are  naturally  regarded  with 
fear  and  dislike  by  persons  who  have  always  been  ac- 
customed to  find  the  sanction  and  justification  of  their 
emotional  prompting  toward  righteousness  in  old  famil- 
iar theories  which  the  new  ones  are  seeking  to  supplant. 
Such  persons  oppose  the  new  doctrine  because  their  en- 
grained mental  habits  compel  them  to  believe  that  its 
establishment  will  in  some  way  lower  men's  standard 
of  life,  and  make  them  less  careful  of  their  spiritual 
welfare.  This  is  the  case,  at  all  events,  when  theo- 
logians oppose  scientific  conclusions  on  religious  grounds, 
and  not  simply  from  mental  dulness  or  rigidity.  And, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  religious  feeling  which  thus  prompts 
resistance  to  scientific  innovation,  it  may  be  said,  with 
some  appearance  of  truth,  that  there  is  a  conflict  be- 
tween religion  and  science. 

But  there  must  always  be  two  parties  to  a  quarrel, 
and  our  statement  has  to  be  modified  as  soon  as  we 
consider  what  the  scientific  innovator  impugns.  It  is 
not  the  emotional  prompting  toward  righteousness,  it 
is  not  the  yearning  to  live  im  Guten,  Ganzen,  Wahren, 
that  he  seeks  to  weaken ;  quite  likely  lie  has  all  this  as 
much  at  heart  as  the  theologian  who  vituperates  him. 
Nor  is  it  true  that  his  discoveries,  in  spite  of  him,  tend 


DRAPER  ON  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION. 


145 


to  destroy  this  all-important  mental  attitude.  It  would 
be  ridiculous  to  say  that  the  fate  of  religious  feeling  is 
really  involved  in  the  fate  of  grotesque  cosmogonies  and 
theosophies  framed  in  the  infancy  of  men's  knowledge 
of  nature ;  for  history  shows  us  quite  the  contrary. 
Religious  feeling  has  survived  the  heliocentric  theory 
and  the  discoveries  of  geologists ;  and  it  will  be  none 
the  worse  for  the  establishment  of  Darwinism.  It  is 
the  merest  truism  to  say  that  religion  strikes  its  roots 
deeper  down  into  human  nature  than  speculative  opin- 
ion, and  is  accordingly  independent  of  any  particular 
set  of  beliefs.  Since,  then,  the  scientific  innovator  does 
not,  either  voluntarily  or  involuntarily,  attack  religion, 
it  follows  that  there  can  be  no  such  "  conflict "  as  that 
of  which  Dr.  Draper  has  undertaken  to  write  the  his- 
tory. The  real  contest  is  between  one  phase  of  science 
and  another;  between  the  more-crude  knowledge  of 
yesterday  and  the  less-crude  knowledge  of  to-day.  The 
contest,  indeed,  as  presented  in  history,  is  simply  the 
measure  of  the  difficulty  which  men  find  in  exchanging 
old  views  for  new  ones.  All  along,  the  practical  ques- 
tion has  been,  whether  we  should  passively  acquiesce  in 
the  crude  generalizations  of  our  ancestors  or  venture 
actively  to  revise  them.  But  as  for  the  religious  senti- 
ment, the  perennial  struggle  in  which  it  has  been  en- 
gaged has  not  been  with  scientific  inquiry,  but  with  the 
selfish  propensities  whose  tendency  is  to  make  men  lead 
the  lives  of  brutes. 

The  time  is  at  hand  when  the  interests  of  religion 
can  no  longer  be  supposed  to  be  subserved  by  obstinate 
adherence  to  crude  speculations  bequeathed  to  us  from 
pre-scientific  antiquity.  One  good  result  of  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution,  which  is  now  gaining  sway  in  all 
departments  of  thought,  is  the  lesson  that  all  our  opin- 


146 


DRAPER  ON  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION. 


ions  must  be  held  subject  to  continual  revision,  and 
that  with  none  of  them  can  our  religious  interests  be 
regarded  as  irretrievably  implicated.  To  any  one  who 
has  once  learned  this  lesson,  a  book  like  Dr.  Draper's 
can  be  neither  interesting  nor  useful.  He  who  has  not 
learned  it  can  derive  little  benefit  from  a  work  which  in 
its  very  title  keeps  open  an  old  and  baneful  source  of 
error  and  confusion. 


ID  U 


November,  1875. 

1* 


VII. 

NATHAN  THE  WISE* 

THE  fame  of  Lessing  is  steadily  growing.  Year  by 
year  he  is  valued  more  highly,  and  valued  by  a 
greater  number  of  people.  And  he  is  destined,  like  his 
master  and  forerunner  Spinoza,  to  receive  a  yet  larger 
share  of  men's  reverence  and  gratitude  when  the  philo- 
sophic spirit  which  he  lived  to  illustrate  shall  have 
become  in  some  measure  the  general  possession  of  the 
civilized  part  of  mankind.  In  his  own  day,  Lessing, 
though  widely  known  and  greatly  admired,  was  little 
understood  or  appreciated.  He  was  known  to  be  a 
learned  antiquarian,  a  terrible  controversialist,  and  an 
incomparable  writer.  He  was  regarded  as  a  brilliant 
ornament  to  Germany ;  and  a  paltry  Duke  of  Brunswick 
thought  a  few  hundred  thalers  well  spent  in  securing 
the  glory  of  having  such  a  man  to  reside  at  his  provin- 
cial court.  But  the  majority  of  Lessing's  contempo- 
raries understood  him  as  little  perhaps  as  did  the  Duke 
of  Brunswick.  If  anything  were  needed  to  prove  this, 
it  would  be  the  uproar  which  was  made  over  the 
publication  of  the  "  "Wolfenbiittel  Fragments,"  and  the 

*  Nathan  the  "Wise  :  A  Dramatic  Poem,  by  Gotthold  Ephraim 
Lessing.  Translated  by  Ellen  Frothingham.  Preceded  by  a  brief  ac- 
count of  the  poet  and  his  works,  and  followed  by  an  essay  on  the  poem 
by  Kuno  Fischer.  Second  edition.  New  York  :  Leypoldt  &  Holt. 
1868. 

Le  Christianisme  Moderne.  Etude  sur  Lessing.  Par  Ernest  Fon- 
tanes.  Paris  :  Bailliere.  1867. 


I48  NATHAN  THE   WISE. 

curious  exegesis  which  was  applied  to  the  poem  of 
"  Nathan  "  on  its  first  appearance.  In  order  to  under- 
stand the  true  character  of  this  great  poem,  and  of 
Lessing's  religious  opinions  as  embodied  in  it,  it  will  be 
necessary  first  to  consider  the  memorable  theological 
controversy  which  preceded  it. 

During  Lessing's  residence  at  Hamburg,  he  had  come 
into  possession  of  a  most  important  manuscript,  written 
by  Hermann  Samuel  Eeimarus,  a  professor  of  Oriental 
languages,  and  bearing  the  title  of  an  "  Apology  for  the 
Eational  Worshippers  of  God."  Struck  with  the  rigor- 
ous logic  displayed  in  its  arguments,  and  with  the  quiet 
dignity  of  its  style,  while  yet  unable  to  accept  its  most 
general  conclusions,  Lessing  resolved  to  publish  the 
manuscript,  accompanying  it  with  his  own  comments 
and  strictures.  Accordingly  in  1774,  availing  himself 
of  the  freedom  from  censorship  enjoyed  by  publications 
drawn  from  manuscripts  deposited  in  the  Ducal  Library 
at  Wolfenblittel,  of  which  he  was  librarian,  Lessing  pub- 
lished the  first  portion  of  this  work,  under  the  title  of 
"  Fragments  drawn  from  the  Papers  of  an  Anonymous 
Writer."  This  first  Fragment,  on  the  "Toleration  of 
Deists,"  awakened  but  little  opposition;  for  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  though  intolerant  enough,  did  not  parade 
its  bigotry,  but  rather  saw  fit  to  disclaim  it.  A  hundred 
years  before,  Rutherford,  in  his  "  Free  Disputation,"  had 
declared  "  toleration  of  alle  religions  to  bee  not  farre 
removed  from  blasphemie."  Intolerance  was  then  a 
thing  to  be  proud  of,  but  in  Lessing's  time  some  progress 
had  been  achieved,  and  men  began  to  think  it  a  good 
thing  to  seem  tolerant.  The  succeeding  Fragments  were 
to  test  this  liberality  and  reveal  the  flimsiness  of  the 
stuff  of  which  it  was  made.  When  the  unknown  dis- 
putant began  to  declare  "  the  impossibility  of  a  revela- 


NATHAN  THE   WISE. 


149 


tion  upon  which  all  men  can  rest  a  solid  faith,"  and 
when  he  began  to  criticize  the  evidences  of  Christ's 
resurrection,  such  a  storm  burst  out  in  the  theological 
world  of  Germany  as  had  not  been  witnessed  since  the 
time  of  Luther.  The  recent  Colenso  controversy  in 
England  was  but  a  gentle  breeze  compared  to  it.  Press 
and  pulpit  swarmed  with  "  refutations,"  in  which  weak- 
ness of  argument  and  scantiness  of  erudition  were  com- 
pensated by  strength  of  acrimony  and  unscrupulousness 
of  slander.  Pamphlets  and  sermons,  says  M.  Fontanes, 
"  were  multiplied,  to  denounce  the  impious  blasphemer, 
who,  destitute  alike  of  shame  and  of  courage,  had 
sheltered  himself  behind  a  paltry  fiction,  in  order  to  let 
loose  upon  society  an  evil  spirit  of  unbelief."  But  Les- 
sing's  artifice  had  been  intended  to  screen  the  memory 
of  Pieimarus,  rather  than  his  own  reputation.  He  was 
not  the  man  to  quail  before  any  amount  of  human  oppo- 
sition ;  and  it  was  when  the  tempest  of  invective  was 
just  at  its  height  that  he  published  the  last  and  boldest 
Fragment  of  all,  —  on  "  the  Designs  of  Jesus  and  his 
Disciples." 

The  publication  of  these  Fragments  led  to  a  mighty 
controversy.  The  most  eminent,  both  for  uncompro- 
mising zeal  and  for  worldly  position,  of  those  who  had 
attacked  Lessing,  was  Melchior  Goetze,  "  pastor  prima- 
rius  "  at  the  Hamburg  Cathedral.  Though  his  name  is 
now  remembered  only  because  of  his  connection  with 
Lessing,  Goetze  was  not  destitute  of  learning  and  abil- 
ity. He  was  a  collector  of  rare  books,  an  amateur  in 
numismatics,  and  an  antiquarian  of  the  narrow-minded 
sort.  Lessing  had  known  him  while  at  Hamburg,  and 
had  visited  him  so  constantly  as  to  draw  forth  from  his 
friends  malicious  insinuations  as  to  the  excellence  of 
the  pastor's  white  wine.  Doubtless  Lessing,  as  a  wise 


150  NATHAN  THE   WISE. 

man,  was  not  insensible  to  the  attractions  of  good 
Moselle ;  but  that  which  he  chiefly  liked  in  this  theo- 
logian was  his  logical  and  rigorously  consistent  turn  of 
mind.  "  He  always,"  says  M.  FontanSs,  "  cherished  a 
holy  horror  of  loose,  inconsequent  thinkers;  and  the 
man  of  the  past,  the  inexorable  guardian  of  tradition, 
appeared  to  him  far  more  worthy  of  respect  than  the 
heterodox  innovator  who  stops  in  mid-course,  and  is 
faithful  neither  to  reason  nor  to  faith." 

But  when  Lessing  published  these  unhallowed  Frag- 
ments, the  hour  of  conflict  had  sounded,  and  Goetze  cast 
himself  into  the  arena  with  a  boldness  and  impetu- 
osity which  Lessing,  in  his  artistic  capacity,  could  not 
fail  to  admire.  He  spared  no  possible  means  of  re- 
ducing his  enemy  to  submission.  He  aroused  against 
him  all  the  constituted  authorities,  the  consistories,  and 
even  the  Aulic  Council  of  the  Empire,  and  he  even  suc- 
ceeded in  drawing  along  with  him  the  chief  of  contem- 
porary rationalists,  Semler,  who  so  far  forgot  himself  as 
to  declare  that  Lessing,  for  what  he  had  done,  deserved  to 
be  sent  to  the  madhouse.  But  with  all  Goetze's  ortho- 
dox valour,  he  was  no  match  for  the  antagonist  whom 
he  had  excited  to  activity.  The  great  critic  replied 
with  pamphlet  after  pamphlet,  invincible  in  logic  and 
erudition,  sparkling  with  wit,  and  irritating  in  their 
utter  coolness.  Such  pamphlets  had  not  been  seen 
since  Pascal  published  the  "  Provincial  Letters."  Goetze 
found -that  he  had  taken  up  arms  against  a  master  in 
the  arts  of  controversy,  and  before  long  he  became  well 
aware  that  he  was  worsted.  Having  brought  the  case 
before  the  Aulic  Council,  which  consisted  in  great  part 
of  Catholics,  the  stout  pastor,  forgetting  that  judgment 
had  not  yet  been  rendered,  allowed  himself  to  proclaim 
that  all  who  do  not  recognize  the  Bible  as  the  only 


NATHAN  THE    WISE.  151 

source  of  Christianity  are  not  fit  to  be  called  Christians 
at  all.  Lessing  was  not  slow  to  profit  by  this  unlucky 
declaration.  Questioned,  with  all  manner  of  ferocious 
vituperation,  by  Goetze,  as  to  what  sort  of  Christianity 
might  have  existed  prior  to  and  independently  of  the 
New  Testament  canon,  Lessing  imperturbably  answered: 
"  By  the  Christian  religion  I  mean  all  the  confessions 
of  faith  contained  in  the  collection  of  creeds  of  the  first 
four  centuries  of  the  Christian  Church,  including,  if  you 
wish  it,  the  so-called  creed  of  the  apostles,  as  well  as  the 
creed  of  Athanasius.  The  content  of  these  confessions 
is  called  by  the  earlier  Fathers  the  regula  folei,  or  rule 
of  faith.  This  rule  of  faith  is  not  drawn  from  the  writ- 
ings of  the  New  Testament.  It  existed  before  any  of 
the  books  in  the  New  Testament  were  written.  It  suf- 
ficed not  only  for  the  first  Christians  of  the  age  of  the 
apostles,  but  for  their  descendants  during  four  centuries. 
And  it  is,  therefore,  the  veritable  foundation  upon  which 
the  Church  of  Christ  is  built ;  a  foundation  not  based 
upon  Scripture."  Thus,  by  a  master-stroke,  Lessing  se- 
cured the  adherence  of  the  Catholics  constituting  a  ma- 
jority of  the  Aulic  Council  of  the  Empire.  Like  Paul 
before  him,  he  divided  the  Sanhedrim.  So  that  Goetze, 
foiled  in  his  attempts  at  using  violence,  and  discon- 
certed by  the  patristic  learning  of  one  whom  he  had 
taken  to  be  a  mere  connoisseur  in  art  and  writer  of 
plays  for  the  theatre,  concluded  that  discretion  was 
the  surest  kind  of  valour,  and  desisted  from  further 
attacks. 

Lessing's  triumph  came  opportunely ;  for  already  the 
ministry  of  Brunswick  had  not  only  confiscated  the 
Fragments,  but  had  prohibited  him  from  publishing 
anything  more  on  the  subject  without  first  obtaining 
express  authority  to  do  so.  His  last  replies  to  Goetze 


152 


NATHAN  THE   WISE. 


were  published  at  Hamburg ;  and  as  he  held  himself 
in  readiness  to  depart  from  Wolfenbiittel,  he  wrote  to 
several  friends  that  he  had  conceived  the  design  of  a 
drama,  with  which  he  would  tear  the  theologians  in 
pieces  more  than  with  a  dozen  Fragments.  "  I  will 
try  and  see,"  said  he,  "  if  they  will  let  me  preach  in 
peace  from  my  old  pulpit,  the  theatre."  In  this  way 
originated  "  Nathan  the  Wise."  But  it  in  no  way 
answered  to  the  expectations  either  of  Lessing's  friends 
or  of  his  enemies.  Both  the  one  and  the  other  expected 
to  see  the  controversy  with  Goetze  carried  on,  developed, 
and  generalized  in  the  poem.  They  looked  for  a  satiri- 
cal comedy,  in  which  orthodoxy  should  be  held  up  for 
scathing  ridicule,  or  at  least  for  a  direful  tragedy,  the 
moral  of  which,  like  that  of  the  great  poem  of  Lucre- 
tius, should  be 

"  Tan  turn  religio  potuit  suadere  malorum." 

Had  Lessing  produced  such  a  poem,  he  would  doubtless 
have  gratified  his  free-thinking  friends  and  wreaked 
due  literary  vengeance  upon  his  theological  persecutors. 
He  would,  perhaps,  have  given  articulate  expression  to 
the  radicalism  of  his  own  time,  and,  like  Voltaire,  might 
have  constituted  himself  the  leader  of  the  age,  the  in- 
carnation of  its  most  conspicuous  tendencies.  But 
Lessing  did  nothing  of  the  kind ;  and  the  expectations 
formed  of  him  by  friends  and  enemies  alike  show  how 
little  he  was  understood  by  either.  "  Nathan  the  Wise  " 
was,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the  eighteenth  century  an  en- 
tirely new  phenomenon ;  and  its  author  was  the  pioneer 
of  a  quite  new  religious  philosophy. 

Eeimarus,  the  able  author  of  the  Fragments,  in  his 
attack  upon  the  evidences  of  revealed  religion,  had 
taken  the  same  ground  as  Voltaire  and  the  old  English 


NATHAN  THE    WISE. 


153 


deists.  And  when  we  have  said  this,  we  have  suffi- 
ciently defined  his  position,  for  the  tenets  of  the  deists 
are  at  the  present  day  pretty  well  known,  and  are,  more- 
over, of  very  little  vital  importance,  having  long  since 
been  supplanted  by  a  more  just  and  comprehensive 
philosophy.  Eeimarus  accepted  neither  miracles  nor 
revelation;  but  in  accordance  with  the  rudimentary 
state  of  criticism  in  his  time,  he  admitted  the  historical 
character  of  the  earliest  Christian  records,  and  was  thus 
driven  to  the  conclusion  that  those  writings  must  have 
been  fraudulently  composed.  How  such  a  set  of  im- 
postors as  the  apostles  must  on  this  hypothesis  have 
been,  should  have  succeeded  in  inspiring  large  num- 
bers of  their  contemporaries  with  higher  and  grander 
religious  notions  than  had  ever  before  been  conceived ; 
how  they  should  have  laid  the  foundations  of  a  theo- 
logical system  destined  to  hold  together  the  most  en- 
lightened and  progressive  portion  of  human  society  for 
seventeen  or  eighteen  centuries,  —  does  not  seem  to  have 
entered  his  mind.  Against  such  attacks  as  this,  ortho- 
doxy was  comparatively  safe ;  for  whatever  doubt  might 
be  thrown  upon  some  of  its  leading  dogmas,  the  system 
as  a  whole  was  more  consistent  and  rational  than  any 
of  the  theories  which  were  endeavouring  to  supplant 
it.  And  the  fact  that  nearly  all  the  great  thinkers  of 
the  eighteenth  century  adopted  this  deistic  hypothesis, 
shows,  more  than  anything  else,  the  crudeness  of  their 
psychological  knowledge,  and  their  utter  lack  of  what 
is  called  "  the  historical  sense." 

Lessing  at  once  saw  the  weak  point  in  Reimarus's 
argument,  but  his  method  of  disposing  of  it  differed 
signally  from  that  adopted  by  his  orthodox  contempo- 
raries. The  more  advanced  German  theologians  of  that 
day,  while  accepting  the  New  Testament  records  as 

7* 


154 


NATHAN  THE   WISE. 


literally  historical,  were  disposed  to  rationalize  the 
accounts  of  miracles  contained  in  them,  in  such  a  way 
as  to  get  rid  of  any  presumed  infractions  of  the  laws  of 
nature.  This  method  of  exegesis,  which  reached  its  per- 
fection in  Paulus,  is  too  well  known  to  need  describing. 
Its  unsatisfactory  character  was  clearly  shown,  thirty 
years  ago,  by  Strauss,  and  it  is  now  generally  abandoned, 
though  some  traces  of  it  may  still  be  seen  in  the  recent 
works  of  Kenan.  Lessing  steadily  avoided  this  method 
of  interpretation.  He  had  studied  Spinoza  to  some 
purpose,  and  the  outlines  of  Biblical  criticism  laid  down 
by  that  remarkable  thinker  Lessing  developed  into  a 
system  wonderfully  like  that  now  adopted  by  the  Tubin- 
gen school.  The  cardinal  results  which  Baur  has  reached 
within  the  past  generation  were  nearly  all  hinted  at  by 
Lessing,  in  his  commentaries  on  the  Fragments.  The 
distinction  between  the  first  three,  or  synoptic  gospels, 
and  the  fourth,  the  later  age  of  the  fourth,  and  the 
method  of  composition  of  the  first  three,  from  earlier 
documents  and  from  oral  tradition,  are  all  clearly  laid 
down  by  him.  The  distinct  points  of  view  from 
which  the  four  accounts  were  composed,  are  also  indi- 
cated,—  the  Judaizing  disposition  of  "Matthew,"  the 
Pauline  sympathies  of  "Luke,"  the  compromising  or 
Petrine  tendencies  of  "  Mark,"  and  the  advanced  Hel- 
lenic character  of  "  John."  Those  best  acquainted  with 
the  results  of  modern  criticism  in  Germany  will  perhaps 
be  most  surprised  at  finding  such  speculations  in  a  book 
written  many  years  before  either  Strauss  or  Baur  were 
born. 

But  such  results,  as  might  have  been  expected,  did 
not  satisfy  the  pastor  Goetze  or  the  public  which  sym- 
pathized with  him.  The  valiant  pastor  unhesitatingly 
declared  that  he  read  the  objections  which  Lessing 


NATHAN  THE   WISE. 


155 


opposed  to  the  Fragmentist  with  more  horror  and  dis- 
gust than  the  Fragments  themselves ;  and  in  the  teeth 
of  the  printed  comments  he  declared  that  the  editor 
was  craftily  upholding  his  author  in  his  deistical  as- 
sault upon  Christian  theology.  The  accusation  was 
unjust,  because  untrue.  There  could  be  no  genuine  co- 
operation between  a  mere  iconoclast  like  Eeimarus,  and 
a  constructive  critic  like  Lessing.  But  the  confusion 
was  not  an  unnatural  one  on  Goetze's  part,  and  I  can- 
not agree  with  M.  Fontanes  in  taking  it  as  convincing 
proof  of  the  pastor's  wrong-headed  perversity.  It  ap- 
pears to  me  that  Goetze  interpreted  Lessing's  position 
quite  as  accurately  as  M.  Fontanes.  The  latter  writer 
thinks  that  Lessing  was  a  Christian  of  the  liberal  school 
since  represented  by  Theodore  Parker  in  this  country 
and  by  M.  Eeville  in  France ;  that  his  real  object  was 
to  defend  and  strengthen  the  Christian  religion  by  re- 
lieving it  of  those  peculiar  doctrines  which  to  the  free- 
thinkers of  his  time  were  a  stumbling-block  and  an 
offence.  And,  in  spite  of  Lessing's  own  declarations, 
he  endeavours  to  show  that  he  was  an  ordinary  theist, 
—  a  follower  of  Leibnitz  rather  than  of  Spinoza.  But 
I  do  not  think  he  has  made  out  his  case.  Lessing's 
own  confession  to  Jacobi  is  unequivocal  enough,  and  can- 
not well  be  argued  away.  In  that  remarkable  conver- 
sation, held  toward  the  close  of  his  life,  .he  indicates 
clearly  enough  that  his  faith  was  neither  that  of  the  or- 
dinary theist,  the  atheist,  nor  the  pantheist,  but  that  his 
religious  theory  of  the  universe  was  identical  with  that 
suggested  by  Spinoza,  adopted  by  Goethe,  and  recently 
elaborated  in  the  first  part  of  the  "  First  Principles  "  of 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  Moreover,  while  Lessing  cannot 
be  considered  an  antagonist  of  Christianity,  neither  did 
he  assume  the  attitude  of  a  defender.  He  remained  out- 


156  NATHAN  THE   WISE. 

side  the  theological  arena ;  looking  at  theological  ques- 
tions from  the  point  of  view  of  a  layman,  or  rather,  as 
M.  Cherbuliez  has  happily  expressed  it,  of  a  Pagan. 
His  mind  was  of  decidedly  antique  structure.  He  had 
the  virtues  of  paganism  :  its  sanity,  its  calmness,  and  its 
probity ;  but  of  the  tenderness  of  Christianity,  and  its 
quenchless  aspirations  after  an  indefinable  ideal,  of  that 
feeling  which  has  incarnated  itself  in  Gothic  cathedrals, 
masses  and  oratorios,  he  exhibited  but  scanty  traces. 
His  intellect  was  above  all  things  self-consistent  and 
incorruptible.  He  had  that  imperial  good-sense  which 
might  have  formed  the  ideal  alike  of  Horace  and  of 
Epictetus.  No  clandestine  preference  for  certain  con- 
clusions could  make  his  reason  swerve  from  the  straight 
paths  of  logic.  And  he  examined  and  rejected  the  con- 
clusions of  Eeimarus  in  the  same  imperturbable  spirit 
with  which  he  examined  and  rejected  the  current  the- 
ories of  the  French  classic  drama. 

Such  a  man  can  have  had  but  little  in  common  with 
a  preacher  like  Theodore  Parker,  or  with  a  writer  like 
M.  Fontanes,  whose  whole  book  is  a  noble  specimen  of 
lofty  Christian  eloquence.  His  attribute  was  light,  not 
warmth.  He  scrutinized,  but  did  not  attack  or  defend. 
He  recognized  the  transcendent  merits  of  the  Christian 
faith,  but  made  no  attempt  to  reinstate  it  where  it  had 
Deemed  to  suffer  shock.  It  was  therefore  with  the 
surest  of  instincts,  with  that  same  instinct  of  self-pres- 
ervation which  had  once  led  the  Church  to  anathematize 
Galileo,  that  Goetze  proclaimed  Lessing  a  more  danger- 
ous foe  to  orthodoxy  than  the  deists  who  had  preceded 
him.  Controversy,  he  doubtless  thought,  may  be  kept 
up  indefinitely,  and  blows  given  and  returned  forever; 
but  before  the  steady  gaze  of  that  scrutinizing  eye 
which  one  of  us  shall  find  himself  able  to  stand  erect  ? 


NATHAN  THE    WISE.  157 

It  fias  become  fashionable  to  heap  blame  and  ridicule 
upon  those  who  violently  defend  an  antiquated  order  of 
things ;  i*nd  Goetze  has  received  at  the  hands  of  poster- 
ity his  full  share  of  abuse.  His  wrath  contrasted  un- 
favourably v»ith  Lessing's  calmness ;  and  it  was  his 
misfortune  to  have  taken  up  arms  against  an  opponent 
who  always  knew  how  to  keep  the  laugh  upon  his  own 
side.  For  my  own  part  I  am  constrained  to  admire  the 
militant  pastor,  as  Lessing  himself  admired  him.  From 
an  artistic  point  of  view  he  is  not  an  uninteresting 
figure  to  contemplate.  And  although  his  attempts  to 
awaken  persecution  were  reprehensible,  yet  his  ardour 
in  defending  what  he  believed  to  be  vital  truth  is  none 
the  less  to  be  respected.  He  had  the  acuteness  to  seo 
that  Lessing's  refutation  of  deism  did  not  make  him  a 
Christian,  while  the  new  views  proposed  as  a  substitute 
for  those  of  Reimarus  were  such  as  Goetze  and  his  age 
could  in  no  wise  comprehend. 

Lessing's  own  views  of  dogmatic  religion  are  to  be 
found  in  his  work  entitled,  "  The  Education  of  the 
Human  Race."  These  views  have  since  so  far  become 
the  veriest  commonplaces  of  criticism,  that  one  can 
hardly  realize  that,  only  ninety  years  ago,  they  should 
have  been  regarded  as  dangerous  paradoxes.  They  may 
be  summed  up  in  the  statement  that  all  great  religions 
are  good  in  their  time  and  place ;  that,  "  as  there  is  a 
soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil,  so  also  there  is  a  soul  of 
truth  in  things  erroneous."  According  to  Lessing,  the 
successive  phases  of  religious  belief  constitute  epochs  in 
the  mental  evolution  of  the  human  race.  So  that  the 
crudest  forms  of  theology,  even  fetishism,  now  to  all 
appearance  so  utterly  revolting,  and  polytheism,  so 
completely  inadequate,  have  once  been  the  best,  the 
natural  and  inevitable  results  of  man's  reasoning  powers 


158 


NATHAN  THE    WISE. 


and  appliances  for  attaining  truth.  The  mere  fact  that 
a  system  of  religious  thought  has  received  the  willing 
allegiance  of  large  masses  of  men  shows  that  it  must 
have  supplied  some  consciously  felt  want,  some  moral 
or  intellectual  craving.  And  the  mere  fact  that  knowl- 
edge and  morality  are  progressive  implies  that  each  suc- 
cessive system  may  in  due  course  of  time  be  essentially 
modified  or  finally  supplanted.  The  absence  of  any 
reference  to  a  future  state  of  retribution,  in  the  Penta- 
teuch and  generally  in  the  sacred  writings  of  the  Jews, 
and  the  continual  appeal  to  hopes  and  fears  of  a  worldly 
character,  have  been  pronounced  by  deists  an  irremedi- 
able defect  in  the  Jewish  religion.  It  is  precisely  this, 
however,  says  Lessing,  which  constitutes  one  of  its  sig- 
nal excellences.  "That  thy  days  may  be  long  in  the 
land  which  Jehovah  thy  God  giveth  thee,"  was  an 
appeal  which  the  uncivilized  Jew  could  understand, 
and  which  could  arouse  him  to  action ;  while  the  need 
of  a  future  world,  to  rectify  the  injustices  of  this,  not 
yet  being  felt,  the  doctrine  would  have  been  of  but  lit- 
tle service.  But  in  later  Hebrew  literature,  many  mag- 
nificent passages  revealed  the  despair  felt  by  prophet 
and  thinker  over  the  insoluble  problem  presented  by 
the  evil  fate  of  the  good  and  the  triumphant  success  of 
the  wicked ;  and  a  solution  was  sought  in  the  doctrine 
of  a  Messianic  kingdom,  until  Christianity  with  its  proc- 
lamation of  a  future  life  set  the  question  entirely  aside. 
By  its  appeal  to  what  has  been  aptly  termed  "  other- 
worldliness,"  Christianity  immeasurably  intensified  hu- 
man responsibility,  besides  rendering  clearer  its  nature 
and  limits.  But  according  to  Lessing,  yet  another  step 
remains  to  be  taken ;  and  here  we  come  upon  the  gulf 
which  separates  him  from  men  of  the  stamp  of  Theodore 
Parker.  For,  says  Lessing,  the  appeal  to  unearthly  re- 


NATHAN  THE    WISE. 


159 


wards  and  punishments  is  after  all  an  appeal  to  our 
lower  feelings;  other- worldliness  is  but  a  refined  self- 
ishness ;  and  we  are  to  cherish  virtue  for  its  own  sake, 
not  because  it  will  lead  us  to  heaven.  Here  is  the 
grand  principle  of  Stoicism.  Lessing  believed,  with  Mr. 
Mill,  that  the  less  we  think  about  getting  rewarded 
either  on  earth  or  in  heaven  the  better.  He  was  cast 
in  the  same  heroic  mould  as  Muhamad  Efendi,  who 
when  led  to  the  stake  exclaimed :  "  Though  I  have  no 
hope  of  recompense  hereafter,  yet  the  love  of  truth  con- 
straineth  me  to  die  in  its  defence ! " 

With  the  truth  or  completeness  of  these  views  of 
Lessing  we  are  not  here  concerned ;  our  business  being 
not  to  expound  our  own  opinions,  but  to  indicate  as 
clearly  as  possible  Lessing's  position.  Those  who  are 
familiar  with  the  general  philosophical  spirit  of  the 
present  age,  as  represented  by  writers  otherwise  so 
different  as  Littre*  and  Sainte-Beuve,  will  best  appre- 
ciate the  power  and  originality  of  these  speculations. 
Coming  in  the  last  century,  amid  the  crudities  of 
deism,  they  made  a  well-defined  epoch.  They  inau- 
gurated the  historical  -method  of  criticism,  and  they 
robbed  the  spirit  of  intolerance  of  its  only  philosophical 
excuse  for  existing.  Hitherto  the  orthodox  had  been 
intolerant  toward  the  philosophers  because  they  con- 
sidered them  heretics ;  and  the  philosophers  had  been 
intolerant  toward  the  orthodox  because  they  considered 
them  fools.  To  Voltaire  it  naturally  seemed  that  a 
man  who  could  believe  in  the  reality  of  miracles  must 
be  what  in  French  is  expressively  termed  a  sot.  But 
henceforth,  to  the  disciple  of  Lessing,  men  of  all  shades 
of  opinion  were  but  the  representatives  and  exponents 
of  different  phases  in  the  general  evolution  of  human 
intelligence,  not  necessarily  to  be  disliked  or  despised 


!(5o  NATHAN  THE    WISE. 

if  they  did  not  happen  to  represent  the  maturest 
phase. 

Religion,  therefore,  from  this  point  of  view,  becomes 
clearly  demarcated  from  theology.  It  consists  no  longer 
in  the  mental  assent  to  certain  prescribed  formulas, 
but  in  the  moral  obedience  to  the  great  rule  of  life; 
the  great  commandment  laid  down  and  illustrated  by 
the  Founder  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  concerning 
which  the  profoundest  modern  philosophy  informs  us 
that  the  extent  to  which  a  society  has  learned  to  con- 
form to  it  is  the  test  and  gauge  of  the  progress  in 
civilization  which  that  society  has  achieved.  The  com- 
mand "to  love  one  another,"  to  check  the  barbarous 
impulses  inherited  from  the  pre-social  state,  while  giv- 
ing free  play  to  the  beneficent  impulses  needful  for 
the  ultimate  attainment  of  social  equilibrium,  —  or  as 
Tennyson  phrases  it,  to  "  move  upward,  working  out 
the  beast,  and  letting  the  ape  and  tiger  die,"  —  was, 
in  Lessing's  view,  the  task  set  before  us  by  religion. 
The  true  religious  feeling  was  thus,  in  his  opinion, 
what  the  author  of  "Ecce  Homo"  has  finely  termed 
"the  enthusiasm  of  humanity."  And  we  shall  find 
no  better  language  than  that  of  the  writer  just  men- 
tioned, in  which  to  describe  Lessing's  conception  of 
faith :  — 

"  He  who,  when  goodness  is  impressively  put  before 
him,  exhibits  an  instinctive  loyalty  to  it,  starts  for- 
ward to  take  its  side,  trusts  himself  to  it,  such  a 
man  has  faith,  and  the  root  of  the  matter  is  in  such 
a  man.  He  may  have  habits  of  vice,  but  the  loyal 
and  faithful  instinct  in  him  will  place  him  above 
many  that  practise  virtue.  He  may  be  rude  in  thought 
and  character,  but  he  will  unconsciously  gravitate  toward 
what  is  right.  Other  virtues  can  scarcely  thrive  with- 


NATHAN  THE    WISE.  !6i 

out  a  fine  natural  organization  and  a  happy  training. 
But  the  most  neglected  and  ungifted  of  men  may 
make  a  beginning  with  faith.  Other  virtues  want 
civilization,  a  certain  amount  of  knowledge,  a  few 
books ;  but  in  half-brutal  countenances  faith  will  light 
up  a  glimmer  of  nobleness.  The  savage,  who  can  do 
little  else,  can  wonder  and  worship  and  enthusiastically 
obey.  He  who  cannot  know  what  is  right  can  know 
that  some  one  else  knows;  he  who  has  no  law  may 
still  have  a  master ;  lie  who  is  incapable  of  justice  may 
be  capable  of  fidelity;  he  who  understands  little  may 
have  his  sins  forgiven  because  he  loves  much." 

Such  was  Lessing's  religion,  so  far  as  it  can  be 
ascertained  from  the  fragmentary  writings  which  he 
has  left  on  the  subject.  Undoubtedly  it  lacked  com- 
pleteness. The  opinions  which  we  have  here  set  down, 
though  constituting  something  more  than  a  mere  theory 
of  morality,  certainly  do  not  constitute  a  complete 
theory  of  religion.  Our  valiant  knight  has  examined 
but  one  side  of  the  shield,  —  the  bright  side,  turned 
toward  us,  whose  marvellous  inscriptions  the  human 
reason  can  by  dint  of  unwearied  effort  decipher.  But 
the  dark  side,  looking  out  upon  infinity,  and  covered 
with  hieroglyphics  the  meaning  of  which  we  can  never 
know,  he  has  quite  forgotten  to  consider.  Yet  it  is 
this  side  which  genuine  religious  feeling  ever  seeks 
to  contemplate.  It  is  the  consciousness  that  there  is 
about  us  an  omnipresent  Power,  in  which  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being,  eternally  manifesting  itself 
throughout  the  whole  range  of  natural  phenomena, 
which  has  ever  disposed  men  to  be  religious,  and  lured 
them  on  in  the  vain  effort  to  construct  adequate  theo- 
logical systems.  We  may,  getting  rid  of  the  last  traces 
of  fetishism,  eliminate  arbitrary  volition  as  much  as 


!62  NATHAN   THE    WISE. 

we  will  or  can.  But  there  still  remains  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  divine  Life  in  the  universe,  of  a  Power  which 
is  beyond  and  above  our  comprehension,  whose  goings 
out  and  comings  in  no  man  can  follow.  The  more  we 
know,  the  more  we  reach  out  for  that  which  we  cannot 
know.  And  who  can  realize  this  so  vividly  as  the 
scientific  philosopher?  For  our  knowledge  being,  ac- 
cording to  the  familiar  comparison,  like  a  brilliant 
sphere,  the  more  we  increase  it  the  greater  becomes 
the  number  of  peripheral  points  at  which  we  are  con- 
fronted by  the  impenetrable  darkness  beyond.  I  be- 
lieve that  this  restless  yearning,  —  vague  enough  in 
the  description,  yet  recognizable  by  all  who,  commun- 
ing with  themselves  or  with  nature,  have  felt  it, — 
this  constant  seeking  for  what  cannot  be  found,  this 
persistent  knocking  at  gates  which,  when  opened,  but 
reveal  others  yet  to  be  passed,  constitutes  an  element 
which  no  adequate  theory  of  religion  can  overlook. 
But  of  this  we  find  nothing  in  Lessing.  With  him  all 
is  sunny,  serene,  and  pagan.  Not  the  dim  aisle  of  a 
vast  cathedral,  but  the  symmetrical  portico  of  an  an- 
tique temple,  is  the  worshipping-place  into  which  he 
would  lead  us. 

But  if  Lessing's  theology  must  be  considered  im- 
perfect, it  is  none  the  less  admirable  as  far  as  it  goes. 
With  its  peculiar  doctrines  of  love  and  faith,  it  teaches 
a  morality  far  higher  than  any  that  Puritanism  ever 
dreamed  of.  And  with  its  theory  of  development  it 
cuts  away  every  possible  logical  basis  for  intolerance. 
It  is  this  theology  to  which  Lessing  has  given  con- 
crete expression  in  his  immortal  poem  of  "  Nathan." 

The  central  idea  of  "  Nathan "  was  suggested  to  Les- 
siug  by  Boccaccio's  story  of  "  The  Three  Kings,"  which 
is  supposed  to  have  had  a  Jewish  origin.  Saladin, 


NATHAN  THE   WISE.  103 

pretending  to  be  inspired  by  a  sudden,  imperious  whim, 
such  as  is  "  not  unbecoming  in  a  Sultan,"  demands  that 
Nathan  shall  answer  him  on  the  spur  of  the  moment 
which  of  the  three  great  religions  then  known  —  Juda- 
ism, Mohammedanism,  Christianity  —  is  adjudged  by 
reason  to  be  the  true  one.  For  a  moment  the  philoso- 
pher is  in  a  quandary.  If  he  does  not  pronounce  in 
favour  of  his  own  religion,  Judaism,  he  stultifies  him- 
self; but  if  he  does  not  award  the  precedence  to 
Mohammedanism,  he  will  apparently  insult  his  sov- 
ereign. With  true  Oriental  tact  he  escapes  from  the 
dilemma  by  means  of  a  parable.  There  was  once  a 
man,  says  Nathan,  who  possessed  a  ring  of  inestima- 
ble value.  Not  only  was  the  stone  which  it  contained 
incomparably  fine,  but  it  possessed  the  marvellous 
property  of  rendering  its  owner  agreeable  both  to  God 
and  to  men.  The  old  man  bequeathed  this  ring  to  that 
one  of  his  sons  whom  he  loved  the  most ;  and  the  son, 
in  turn,  made  a  similar  disposition  of  it.  So  that, 
passing  from  hand  to  hand,  the  ring  finally  came  into 
the  possession  of  a  father  who  loved  his  three  sons 
equally  well.  Unto  which  one  should  he  leave  it  ? 
To  get  rid  of  the  perplexity,  he  had  two  other  rings 
made  by  a  jeweller,  exactly  like  the  original,  and  to 
each  of  his  three  sons  he  bequeathed  one.  Each  then 
thinking  that  he  had  obtained  the  true  talisman,  they 
began  violently  to  quarrel,  and  after  long  contention 
agreed  to  carry  their  dispute  before  the  judge.  But  the 
judge  said :  "  Quarrelsome  fellows  !  You  are  all  three 
of  you  cheated  cheats.  Your  three  rings  are  alike  coun- 
terfeit. For  the  genuine  ring  is  lost,  and  to  conceal  the 
loss,  your  father  had  made  these  three  substitutes."  At 
this  unexpected  denouement  the  Sultan  breaks  out  in 
exclamations  of  delight;  and  it  is  interesting  to  learn 


T64  NATHAN  THE    WISE. 

that  when  the  play  was  brought  upon  the  stage  at  Con- 
stantinople a  few  years  ago,  the  Turkish  audience  was 
similarly  affected.  There  is  in  the  story  that  quiet, 
stealthy  humour  which  is  characteristic  of  many  mediae- 
val apologues,  and  in  which  Lessing  himself  loved  to 
deal.  It  is  humour  of  the  kind  which  hits  the  mark, 
and  reveals  the  truth.  In  a  note  upon  this  passage, 
Lessing  himself  said:  "The  opinion  of  Nathan  upon 
all  positive  religions  has  for  a  long  time  been  my  own." 
Let  him  who  has  the  genuine  ring  show  it  by  making 
himself  loved  of  God  and  man.  This  is  the  central 
idea  of  the  poem.  It  is  wholly  unlike  the  iconoclasm 
of  the  deists,  and,  coming  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
it  was  like  a  veritable  evangel. 

"  Nathan  "  was  not  brought  out  until  three  years  after 
Lessing's  death,  and  it  kept  possession  of  the  stage  for 
but  a  short  time.  In  a  dramatic  point  of  view,  it  has 
hardly  any  merits.  Whatever  plot  there  is  in  it  is  weak 
and  improbable.  The  decisive  incidents  seem  to  be 
brought  in  like  the  deus  ex  machina  of  the  later  Greek 
drama.  There  is  no  movement,  no  action,  no  develop- 
ment. The  characters  are  poetically  but  not  dramati- 
cally conceived.  Considered  as  a  tragedy,  "Nathan" 
would  be  weak;  considered  as  a  comedy,  it  would  be 
heavy.  With  full  knowledge  of  these  circumstances, 
Lessing  called  it  not  a  drama,  but  a  dramatic  poem; 
and  he  might  have  called  it  still  more  accurately  a 
didactic  poem,  for  the  only  feature  which  it  has  in  com- 
mon with  the  drama  is  that  the  personages  use  the 
oratio  directa. 

"  Nathan  "  is  a  didactic  poem  :  it  is  not  a  mere  phil- 
osophic treatise  written  in  verse,  like  the  fragments  of 
Xenophanes.  Its  lessons  are  conveyed  concretely  and 
not  abstractly;  and  its  characters  are  not  mere  lay 


NATHAN  THE    WISE. 


I65 


figures,  but  living  poetical  conceptions.  Considered  as 
a  poem  among  classic  German  poems,  it  must  rank  next 
to,  though  immeasurably  below,  Goethe's  "  Faust." 

There  are  two  contrasted  kinds  of  genius,  the  poetical 
and  the  philosophical ;  or,  to  speak  yet  more  generally, 
the  artistic  and  the  critical.  The  former  is  distinguished 
by  a  concrete,  the  latter  by  an  abstract,  imagination. 
The  former  sees  things  synthetically,  in  all  their  natural 
complexity;  the  latter  pulls  things  to  pieces  analyti- 
cally, and  scrutinizes  their  relations.  The  former  sees  a 
tree  in  all  its  glory,  where  the  latter  sees  an  exogen 
with  a  pair  of  cotyledons.  The  former  sees  wholes, 
where  the  latter  sees  aggregates. 

Corresponding  with  these  two  kinds  of  genius  there 
are  two  classes  of  artistic  productions.  When  the  criti- 
cal genius  writes  a  poem  or  a  novel,  lie  constructs  his 
plot  and  his  characters  in  conformity  to  some  prear- 
ranged theory,  or  with  a  view  to  illustrate  some  favour- 
ite doctrine.  When  he  paints  a  picture,  he  first  thinks 
how  certain  persons  would  look  under  certain  given  cir- 
cumstances, and  paints  them  accordingly.  When  he 
writes  a  piece  of  music,  he  first  decides  that  this  phrase 
expresses  joy,  and  that  phrase  disappointment,  and  the 
other  phrase  disgust,  and  he  composes  accordingly.  We 
therefore  say  ordinarily  that  he  does  not  create,  but 
only  constructs  and  combines.  It  is  far  different  with 
the  artistic  genius,  who,  without  stopping  to  think,  sees 
the  picture  and  hears  the  symphony  with  the  eyes  and 
ears  of  imagination,  and  paints  and  plays  merely  what 
he  has  seen  and  heard.  When  Dante,  in  imagination, 
arrived  at  the  lowest  circle  of  hell,  where  traitors  like 
Judas  and  Brutus  are  punished,  he  came  upon  a  terrible 
frozen  lake,  which,  lie  says,  — 

"Ever  makes  me  shudder  at  the  sight  of  frozen  pools." 


NATHAN  THE   WISE. 

I  have  always  considered  this  line  a  marvellous  in- 
stance of  the  intensity  of  Dante's  imagination.  It 
shows,  too,  how  Dante  composed  his  poem.  He  did 
not  take  counsel  of  himself  and  say :  "  Go  to,  let  us 
describe  the  traitors  frozen  up  to  their  necks  in  a  dis- 
mal lake,  for  that  will  be  most  terrible."  But  the  pic- 
ture of  the  lake,  in  all  its  iciness,  with  the  haggard  faces 
staring  out  from  its  glassy  crust,  came  unbidden  before 
his  mind  with  such  intense  reality  that,  for  the  rest  of 
his  life,  he  could  not  look  at  a  frozen  pool  without  a 
shudder  of  horror.  He  described  it  exactly  as  he  saw 
it ;  and  his  description  makes  us  shudder  who  read  it 
after  all  the  centuries  that  have  intervened.  So  Michael 
Angelo,  a  kindred  genius,  did  not  keep  cutting  and 
chipping  away,  thinking  how  Moses  ought  to  look,  and 
what  sort  of  a  nose  he  ought  to  have,  and  in  what  posi- 
tion his  head  might  best  rest  upon  his  shoulders.  But 
he  looked  at  the  rectangular  block  of  Carrara  mar- 
ble, and  beholding  Moses  grand  and  lifelike  within  it, 
knocked  away  the  environing  stone,  that  others  also 
might  see  the  mighty  figure.  And  so  Beethoven,  an 
artist  of  the  same  colossal  order,  wrote  out  for  us  those 
mysterious  harmonies  which  his  ear  had  for  the  first 
time  heard;  and  which,  in  his  mournful  old  age,  it 
heard  none  the  less  plainly  because  of  its  complete 
physical  deafness.  And  in  this  way  Shakespeare  wrote 
his  "  Othello  "  ;  spinning  out  no  abstract  thoughts  about 
jealousy  and  its  fearful  effects  upon  a  proud  and  ardent 
nature,  but  revealing  to  us  the  living  concrete  man,  as 
his  imperial  imagination  had  spontaneously  fashioned 
him. 

Modern  psychology  has  demonstrated  that  this  is  the 
way  in  which  the  creative  artistic  imagination  proceeds. 
It  has  proved  that  a  vast  portion  of  all  our  thinking 


NATHAN  THE   WISE. 


167 


goes  on  unconsciously ;  and  that  the  results  may  arise 
into  consciousness  piecemeal  and  gradually,  checking 
each  other  as  they  come ;  or  that  they  may  come  all  at 
once,  with  all  the  completeness  and  definiteness  of  per- 
ceptions presented  from  without.  The  former  is  the 
case  with  the  critical,  and  the  latter  with  the  artistic 
intellect.  And  this  we  recognize  imperfectly  when  we 
talk  of  a  genius  being  "  inspired."  All  of  us  probably 
have  these  two  kinds  of  imagination  to  a  certain  extent. 
It  is  only  given  to  a  few  supremely  endowed  persons 
like  Goethe  to  possess  them  both  to  an  eminent  degree. 
Perhaps  of  no  other  man  can  it  be  said  that  he  was  a 
poet  of  the  first  order,  and  as  great  a  critic  as  poet. 

It  is  therefore  apt  to  be  a  barren  criticism  which 
studies  the  works  of  creative  geniuses  in  order  to  ascer- 
tain what  theory  lies  beneath  them.  How  many  sys- 
tems of  philosophy,  how  many  subtle  speculations,  have 
we  not  seen  fathered  upon  Dante,  Cervantes,  Shake- 
speare, and  Goethe  !  Yet  their  works  are,  in  a  certain 
sense,  greater  than  any  systems.  They  partake  of  the 
infinite  complexity  and  variety  of  nature,  and  no  more 
than  nature  itself  can  they  be  narrowed  down  to  the 
limits  of  a  precise  formula. 

Lessing  was  wont  to  disclaim  the  title  of  poet ;  but, 
as  Goethe  said,  his  immortal  works  refute  him.  He  had 
not  only  poetical,  but  dramatic  genius ;  and  his  "  Emilia 
Galotti "  has  kept  the  stage  until  to-day.  Nevertheless, 
he  knew  well  what  he  meant  when  he  said  that  he  was 
more  of  a  critic  than  a  poet.  His  genius  was  mainly  of 
the  critical  order;  and  his  great  work,  "Nathan  the 
Wise,"  was  certainly  constructed  rather  than  created. 
It  was  intended  to  convey  a  doctrine,  and  was  carefully 
shaped  for  the  purpose.  And  when  we  have  pronounced 
it  the  greatest  of  all  poems  that  have  been  written  for  a 


!68  NATHAN  THE   WISE. 

set  purpose,  and  admit  of  being  expressed  in  a  definite 
formula,  we  have  classified  it  with  sufficient  accuracy. 

For  an  analysis  of  the  characters  in  the  poem,  nothing 
can  be  better  than  the  essay  by  Kuno  Fischer,  appended 
to  the  present  volume.  The  work  of  translation  has 
been  admirably  done;  and  thanks  are  due  to  Miss 
Frothingham  for  her  reproduction  of  this  beautiful 
poem. 

June,  1868. 


VIII. 

HISTOKICAL  DIFFICULTIES.* 

HISTOEY,  says  Sainte-Beuve,  is  in  great  part  a  set 
of  fables  which  people  agree  to  believe  in.  And, 
on  reading  books  like  the  present,  one  certainly  needs  a 
good  deal  of  that  discipline  acquired  by  long  familiarity 
with  vexed  historical  questions,  in  order  to  check  the 
disposition  to  accept  the  great  critic's  ironical  remark 
in  sober  earnest.  Much  of  what  is  currently  accredited 
as  authentic  history  is  in  fact  a  mixture  of  flattery  and 
calumny,  myth  and  fable.  Yet  in  this  set  of  fables, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  case  in  past  times,  people 
will  no  longer  agree  to  believe.  During  the  present 
century  the  criticism  of  recorded  events  has  gone  far 
toward  assuming  the  developed  and  systematized  aspect 
of  a  science,  and  canons  of  belief  have  been  established 
which  it  is  not  safe  to  disregard.  Great  occurrences, 
such  as  the  Trojan  War  and  the  Siege  of  Thebes,  not 
long  ago  faithfully  described  by  all  historians  of  Greece, 
have  been  found  to  be  part  of  the  common  mythical 
heritage  of  the  Aryan  nations.  Achilleus  and  Helena, 
Oidipous  and  lokasta,  Oinone  and  Paris,  have  been  dis- 
covered in  India  and  again  in  Scandinavia,  and  so  on, 
until  their  nonentity  has  become  the  legitimate  infer- 
ence from  their  very  ubiquity.  Legislators  like  Eom- 

*  Historical  Difficulties  and  Contested  Events.      By  Octave  Dele- 
pierre,  LL.  D.,  F.  S.  A.,  Secretary  of  Legation  to  the  King  of  the  Bel- 
gians.    8vo.     London  :  Murray.     1868. 
8 


I/O 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 


ulus  and  Numa,  inventors  like  Kadmos,  have  evaporated 
into  etymologies.  Whole  legions  of  heroes,  dynasties 
of  kings,  and  adulteresses  as  many  as  Dante  saw  borne 
on  the  whirlwind,  have  vanished  from  the  face  of  his- 
tory, and  terrible  has  been  the  havoc  in  the  opening 
pages  of  our  chronological  tables.  Nor  is  it  primitive 
history  alone  which  has  been  thus  metamorphosed. 
Characters  unduly  exalted  or  defamed  by  party  spirit 
are  daily  being  set  before  us  in  their  true,  or  at  least  in 
a  truer,  light.  What  Mr.  Froude  has  done  for  Henry 
VIII.  we  know ;  and  he  might  have  done  more  if  he 
had  not  tried  to  do  so  much.  Humpbacked  Richard 
turns  out  to  have  been  one  of  the  handsomest  kings 
that  ever  sat  on  the  throne  of  England.  Edward  I., 
in  his  dealings  with  Scotland,  is  seen  to  have  been 
scrupulously  just ;  while  the  dignity  of  the  patriot  hero 
Wallace  has  been  somewhat  impaired.  Elizabeth  is 
proved  to  have  befriended  the  false  Mary  Stuart  much 
longer  than  was  consistent  with  her  personal  safety. 
Eloquent  Cicero  has  been  held  up  as  an  object  of  con- 
tempt ;  and  even  weighty  Tacitus  has  been  said  to  owe 
much  of  his  reputation  to  his  ability  to  give  false  tes- 
timony with  a  grave  face.  It  has  lately  been  suspected 
that  gloomy  Tiberius,  apart  from  his  gloominess,  may 
have  been  rather  a  good  fellow;  not  so  licentious  as 
puritanical,  not  cruel  so  much  as  exceptionally  merci- 
ful, —  a  rare  general,  a  sagacious  statesman,  and  popu- 
lar to  boot  with  all  his  subjects  save  the  malignant 
oligarchy  which  he  consistently  snubbed,  and  which 
took  revenge  on  him  by  writing  his  life.  And,  to  crown 
all,  even  Catiline,  abuser  of  our  patience,  seducer  of 
vestal  nuns,  and  drinker  of  children's  blood,  —  whose 
very  name  suggests  murder,  incest,  and  robbery,  —  even 
Catiline  has  found  an  able  defender  in  Professor  Beesly. 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 


171 


It  is  claimed  that  Catiline  was  a  man  of  great  abilities 
and  average  good  character,  a  well-calumniated  leader 
of  the  Marian  party  which  Csesar  afterwards  led  to  vic- 
tory, and  that  his  famous  plot  for  burning  Eome  never 
existed  save  in  the  unscrupulous  Ciceronian  fancy.  And 
those  who  think  it  easy  to  refute  these  conclusions  of 
Professor  Beesly  had  better  set  to  work  and  try  it.  Such 
are  a  few  of  the  surprising  questions  opened  by  recent 
historical  research ;  and  in  the  face  of  them  the  public 
is  quite  excusable  if  it  declares  itself  at  a  loss  what  to 
believe. 

These,  however,  are  cases  in  which  criticism  has  at 
least  made  some  show  of  ascertaining  the  truth  and  de- 
tecting the  causes  of  the  prevalent  misconception.  That 
men  like  Catiline  and  Tiberius  should  have  had  their 
characters  blackened  is  quite  easily  explicable.  Presi- 
dent Johnson  would  have  little  better  chance  of  obtain- 
ing justice  at  the  hands  of  posterity,  if  the  most  widely 
read  history  of  his  administration  should  happen  to  be 
written  by  a  radical  member  of  the  Rump  Congress. 
But  the  cases  which  Mr.  Delepierre  invites  us  to  con- 
template are  of  a  different  character.  They  come  neither 
under  the  head  of  myths  nor  under  that  of  misrepresen- 
tations. Some  of  them  are  truly  vexed  questions  which 
it  may  perhaps  always  be  impossible  satisfactorily  to 
solve.  Others  may  be  dealt  with  more  easily,  but  afford 
no  clew  to  the  origin  of  the  popularly  received  error. 
Let  us  briefly  examine  a  few  of  Mr.  Delepierre's  "  diffi- 
culties." And  first,  because  simplest,  we  will  take  the 
case  of  the  Alexandrian  Library. 

Every  one  has  heard  how  Amrou,  after  his  conquest 
of  Egypt,  sent  to  Caliph  Omar  to  know  what  should  be 
done  with  the  Alexandrian  Library.  "If  the  books 
s-gree  with  the  Koran,"  said  the  Caliph,  "  they  are 


172 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 


superfluous;  if  they  contradict  it,  they  are  damnable; 
in  either  case,  destroy  them."  So  the  books  were  taken 
and  used  to  light  the  fires  which  heated  water  for  the 
baths;  and  so  vast  was  the  number  that,  used  in  this 
way,  they  lasted  six  months !  All  this  happened  be- 
cause John  the  Grammarian  was  over-anxious  enough 
to  request  that  the  books  might  be  preserved,  and  thus 
drew  Amrou's  attention  to  them.  Great  has  been  the 
obloquy  poured  upon  Omar  for  this  piece  of  vandalism, 
and  loud  has  been  the  mourning  over  the  treasures  of 
ancient  science  and  literature  supposed  to  have  been 
irrecoverably  lost  in  this  ignominious  conflagration. 
Theologians,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  have  been  fond 
of  quoting  it  as  an  instance  of  the  hostility  of  Mahomet- 
anism  to  knowledge,  and  we  have  even  heard  an  edifying 
sermon  preached  about  it.  On  seeing  the  story  put  to 
such  uses,  one  feels  sometimes  like  using  the  ad  Jiomi- 
nem  argument,  and  quoting  the  wholesale  destruction 
of  pagan  libraries  under  Valens,  the  burning  of  books  by 
the  Latin  stormers  of  Constantinople,  the  alleged  anni- 
hilation of  100,000  volumes  by  Genoese  crusaders  at 
Tripoli,  the  book-burning  exploits  of  Torquemada,  the 
bonfire  of  80,000  valuable  Arabic  manuscripts,  lighted 
up  in  the  square  of  Granada  by  order  of  Cardinal  Xi- 
menes,  and  the  irreparable  cremation  of  Aztec  writings 
by  the  first  Christian  bishops  of  Mexico.  These  exam- 
ples, with  perhaps  others  which  do  not  now  occur  to 
us,  might  be  applied  in  just  though  ungentle  retort  by 
Mahometan  doctors.  Yet  the  most  direct  rejoinder 
would  probably  not  occur  to  them :  the  Alexandrian 
Library  was  not  destroyed  by  the  orders  of  Omar,  and 
the  whole  story  is  a  figment ! 

The  very  pithiness  of  it,  so  characteristic  of  the  ex- 
cellent but  bigoted  Omar,  is  enough  to  cast  suspicion 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES.  173 

upon  it.  De  Quincey  tells  us  that  "  if  a  saying  has  a 
proverbial  fame,  the  probability  is  that  it  was  never 
said."  How  many  amusing  stories  stand  a  chance  of 
going  down  to  posterity  as  the  inventions  of  President 
Lincoln,  of  which,  nevertheless,  he  is  doubtless  wholly 
innocent !  How  characteristic  was  Caesar's  reply  to  the 
frightened  pilot!  Yet  in  all  probability  Caesar  never 
made  it. 

Now  for  the  evidence.  Alexandria  was  captured  by 
Amrou  in  640.  The  story  of  the  burning  of  the  library 
occurs  for  the  first  time  in  the  works  of  Abulpharagius, 
who  flourished  in  1264.  Six  hundred  years  had  elapsed. 
It  is  as  if  a  story  about  the  crusades  of  Louis  IX.  were 
to  be  found  for  the  first  time  in  the  writings  of  Mr. 
Bancroft.  The  Byzantine  historians  were  furiously 
angry  with  the  Saracens ;  why  did  they,  one  and  all, 
neglect  to  mention  such  an  outrageous  piece  of  vandal- 
ism ?  Their  silence  must  be  considered  quite  conclusive. 
Moreover  we  know  "that  the  caliphs  had  forbidden 
under  severe  penalties  the  destruction  "  of  Jewish  and 
Christian  books,  a  circumstance  wholly  inconsistent 
with  this  famous  story.  And  finally,  what  a  mediaeval 
recklessness  of  dates  is  shown  in  lugging  into  the  story 
John  the  Grammarian,  who  was  dead  and  in  his  grave 
when  Alexandria  was  taken  by  Amrou ! 

But  the  chief  item  of  proof  remains  to  be  mentioned. 
The  Saracens  did  not  burn  the  library,  because  there 
was  no  library  there  for  them  to  burn !  It  had  been 
destroyed  just  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  by  a 
rabble  of  monks,  incited  by  the  patriarch  Theophilus, 
who  saw  in  such  a  vast  collection  of  pagan  literature 
a  perpetual  insult  and  menace  to  religion.  In  the  year 
390  this  turbulent  bigot  sacked  the  temple  of  Serapis, 
where  the  books  were  kept,  and  drove  out  the  philos- 


174 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 


opliers  who  lodged  there.  Of  this  violent  deed  we  have 
contemporary  evidence,  for  Orosius  tells  us  that  less 
than  fifteen  years  afterwards,  while  passing  through 
Alexandria,  he  saw  the  empty  shelves.  This  fact  dis- 
poses of  the  story. 

Passing  from  Egypt  to  France,  and  from  the  seventh 
century  to  the  fifteenth,  we  meet  with  a  much  more 
difficult  problem.  That  Jeanne  d'Arc  was  burnt  at  the 
stake,  at  Eouen,  on  the  30th  of  May,  1431,  and  her 
bones  and  ashes  thrown  into  the  Seine,  is  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  as  indisputable  as  any  event  in  modern 
history.  Such  is,  however,  hardly  the  case.  Plausible 
evidence  has  been  brought  to  prove  that  Jeanne  dArc 
was  never  burnt  at  the  stake,  but  lived  to  a  ripe  age, 
and  was  even  happily  married  to  a  nobleman  of  high 
rank  and  reputation.  We  shall  abridge  Mr.  Delepierre's 
statement  of  this  curious  case. 

In  the  archives  of  Metz,  Father  Vignier  discovered 
the  following  remarkable  entry :  "  In  the  year  1436, 
Messire  Phlin  Marcou  was  Sheriff  of  Metz,  and  on  the 
20th  day  of  May  of  the  aforesaid  year  came  the  maid 
Jeanne,  who  had  been  in  France,  to  La  Grange  of 
Ormes,  near  St.  Prive",  and  was  taken  there  to  confer 
with  any  one  of  the  sieurs  of  Metz,  and  she  called  her- 
self Claude ;  and  on  the  same  day  there  came  to  see  her 
there  her  two  brothers,  one  of  whom  was  a  knight,  and 
was  called  Messire  Pierre,  and  the  other  '  petit  Jehan,' 
a  squire,  and  they  thought  that  she  had  been  burnt,  but 
as  soon  as  they  saw  her  they  recognized  her  and  she 
them.  And  on  Monday,  the  21st  day  of  the  said 
month,  they  took  their  sister  with  them  to  Boquelon, 
and  the  sieur  Nicole,  being  a  knight,  gave  her  a  stout 
stallion  of  the  value  of  thirty  francs,  and  a  pair  of  sad- 
dle-cloths ;  the  sieur  Aubert  Boulle,  a  riding-hood ;  the 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES.  175 

sieur  Nicole  Groguet,  a  sword;  and  the  said  maiden 
mounted  the  said  horse  nimbly,  and  said  several  things 
to  the  sieur  Nicole  by  which  he  well  understood  that  it 
was  she  who  had  been  in  France ;  and  she  was  recog- 
nized by  many  tokens  to  be  the  maid  Jeanne  of  France 
who  escorted  King  Charles  to  Rheims,  and  several  de- 
clared that  she  had  been  burnt  in  Normandy,  and  she 
spoke  mostly  in  parables.  She  afterwards  returned  to 
the  town  of  Marnelle  for  the  feast  of  Pentecost,  and 
remained  there  about  three  weeks,  and  then  set  off  to 
go  to  Notre  Dame  d' Alliance.  And  when  she  wished  to 
leave,  several  of  Metz  went  to  see  her  at  the  said  Mar- 
nelle and  gave  her  several  jewels,  and  they  knew  well 
that  she  was  the  maid  Jeanne  of  France ;  and  she  then 
went  to  Erlon,  in  the  Duchy  of  Luxembourg,  where  she 
was  thronged,  ....  and  there  was  solemnized  the  mar- 
riage of  Monsieur  de  Hermoise,  knight,  and  the  said 
maid  Jeanne,  and  afterwards  the  said  sieur  Hermoise, 
witli  his  wife,  the  Maid,  came  to  live  at  Metz,  in  the 
house  the  said  sieur  had,  opposite  St.  Seglenne,  and 
remained  there  until  it  pleased  them  to  depart." 

This  is  surprising  enough  ;  but  more  remains  behind. 
Dining  shortly  afterwards  with  M.  des  Armoises,  mem- 
ber of  one  of  the  oldest  families  in  Lorraine,  Father 
Yignier  was  invited  to  look  over  the  family  archives, 
that  he  might  satisfy  his  curiosity  regarding  certain 
ancestors  of  his  host.  And  on  looking  over  the  family 
register,  what  was  his  astonishment  at  finding  a  con- 
tract of  marriage  between  Eobert  des  Armoises,  Knight, 
and  Jeanne  d'Arcy,  the  so-called  Maid  of  Orleans ! 

In  1740,  some  time  after  these  occurrences,  there  was 
found,  in  the  town  hall  of  Orleans,  a  bill  of  one  Jacques 
1'Argentier,  of  the  year  1436,  in  which  mention  is  made 
of  a  small  sum  paid  for  refreshments  furnished  to  a 


HISTORICAL   DIFFICULTIES. 

messenger  who  had  brought  letters  from  the  Maid  of 
Orleans,  and  of  twelve  livres  given  to  Jean  du  Lis, 
brother  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,  to  help  him  pay  the  expenses 
of  his  journey  back  to  his  sister.  Then  come  two  charges 
which  we  shall  translate  literally.  "To  the  sieur  de 
Lis,  18th  October,  1436,  for  a  journey  which  he  made 
through  the  said  city  while  on  his  way  to  the  Maid, 
who  was  tJien  at  Erlon  in  Luxembourg,  and  for  carrying 
letters  from  Jeanne  the  Maid  to  the  King  at  Loicher, 
where  he  was  then  staying,  six  livres."  And  again: 
"To  Renard  Brune,  25th  July,  1435,  at  evening,  for 
paying  the  hire  of  a  messenger  who  was  carrying  letters 
from  Jeanne  the  Maid,  and  was  on  his  way  to  William 
Beliers,  bailiff  of  Troyes,  two  livres." 

As  no  doubt  has  been  thrown  upon  the  genuineness 
of  these  documents,  it  must  be  considered  established 
that  in  1436,  five  years  after  the  public  execution  at 
Rouen,  a  young  woman,  believed  to  be  the  real  Jeanne 
d'Arc,  was  alive  in  Lorraine  and  was  married  to  a  M. 
Hermoises  or  Armoises.  She  may,  of  course,  have  been 
an  impostor ;  but  in  this  case  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  her  brothers,  Jean  and  Pierre,  and  the  people  of 
Lorraine,  where  she  was  well  known,  would  not  have 
detected  the  imposture  at  once.  And  that  Jean  du  Lis, 
during  a  familiar  intercourse  of  at  least  several  months, 
as  indicated  in  the  above  extracts,  should  have  continued 
to  mistake  a  stranger  for  his  own  sister,  with  whom 
he  had  lived  from  childhood,  seems  a  very  absurd 
supposition.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  an  impostor  would 
have  exposed  herself  to  such  a  formidable  test.  If  it 
had  been  a  bold  charlatan  who,  taking  advantage  of 
the  quite  general  belief,  to  which  we  have  ample  testi- 
mony, that  there  was  something  more  in  the  execution 
at  Rouen  than  was  allowed  to  come  to  the  surface,  had 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 


177 


resolved  to  usurp  for  herself  the  honours  due  to  the 
woman  who  had  saved  France,  she  would  hardly  have 
gone  at  the  outset  to  a  part  of  the  country  where  the 
real  Maid  had  spent  nearly  all  her  life.  Her  instant 
detection  and  exposure,  perhaps  a  disgraceful  punish- 
ment, would  have  been  inevitable.  But  if  this  person 
were  the  real  Jeanne,  escaped  from  prison  or  returning 
from  an  exile  dictated  by  prudence,  what  should  she 
have  done  but  go  straightway  to  the  haunts  of  her 
childhood,  where  she  might  meet  once  more  her  own 
friends  and  family  ? 

But  the  account  does  not  end  here.  M.  Wallon, 
in  his  elaborate  history  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,  states  that  in 
1436  the  supposed  Maid  visited  France,  and  appears 
to  have  met  some  of  the  men-at-arms  with  whom  she 
had  fought.  In  1439  she  came  to  Orleans,  for  in  the 
accounts  of  the  town  we  read,  "  July  28,  for  ten  pints 
of  wine  presented  to  Jeanne  des  Armoises,  14  sous." 
And  on  the  day  of  her  departure,  the  citizens  of  Orleans, 
by  a  special  decree  of  the  town-council,  presented 
her  with  210  livres,  "for  the  services  which  she  had 
rendered  to  the  said  city  during  the  siege."  At  the 
same  time  the  annual  ceremonies  for  the  repose  of  her 
soul  were,  quite  naturally,  suppressed.  Now  we  may 
ask  if  it  is  at  all  probable  that  the  people  of  Orleans, 
who,  ten  years  before,  during  the  siege,  must  have  seen 
the  Maid  day  after  day,  and  to  whom  her  whole  appear- 
ance must  have  been  perfectly  familiar,  would  have 
been  likely  to  show  such  attentions  as  these  to  an 
impostor  ?  "  In  1440,"  says  Mr.  Delepierre,  "  the  peo- 
ple so  firmly  believed  that  Jeanne  d'Arc  was  still 
alive,  and  that  another  had  been  sacrificed  in  her  place, 
that  an  adventuress  who  endeavoured  to  pass  herself 
off  as  the  Maid  of  Orleans  was  ordered  by  the  govern- 

8*  I. 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 

ment  to  be  exposed  before  the  public  on  the  marble 
stone  of  the  palace  hall,  in  order  to  prove  that  she 
was  an  impostor.  Why  were  not  such  measures  taken 
against  the  real  Maid  of  Orleans,  who  is  mentioned 
in  so  many  public  documents,  and  who  took  no  pains 
to  hide  herself?" 

There  is  yet  another  document  bearing  on  this  case, 
drawn  from  the  accounts  of  the  auditor  of  the  Orleans 
estate,  in  the  year  1444,  which  we  will  here  translate. 
"An  island  on  the  Eiver  Loire  is  restored  to  Pierre 
du  Lis,  knight,  'on  account  of  the  supplication  of  the 
said  Pierre,  alleging  that  for  the  acquittal  of  his  debt 
of  loyalty  toward  our  Lord  the  King  and  M.  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  he  left  his  country  to  come  to  the  service 
of  the  King  and  M.  the  Duke,  accompanied  by  his 
sister,  Jeanne  the  Maid,  with  whom,  down  to  tJie  time 
of  her  departure,  and  since,  unto  the  present  time,  he 
has  exposed  his  body  and  goods  in  the  said  service,  and 
in  the  King's  wars,  both  in  resisting  the  former  enemies 
of  the  kingdom  who  were  besieging  the  town  of 
Orleans,  and  since  then  in  divers  enterprises,'  &c.,  &c." 
Upon  this  Mr.  Delepierre  justly  remarks  that  the 
brother  might  have  presented  his  claims  in  a  much 
stronger  light,  "  if  in  1444,"  instead  of  saying  '  up  to  the 
time  of  her  departure,'  he  had  brought  forward  the 
martyrdom  of  his  sister,  as  having  been  the  means  of 
saving  France  from  the  yoke  of  England."  The  ex- 
pression here  cited  and  italicized  in  the  above  trans- 
lation, may  indeed  be  held  to  refer  delicately  to 
her  death,  but  the  particular  French  phrase  employed, 
"jusqws  a  son  absentement,"  apparently  excludes  such 
an  interpretation.  The  expression,  on  the  other  hand, 
might  well  refer  to  Jeanne's  departure  for  Lorraine,  and 
her  marriage,  after  which  there  is  no  evidence  that  she 
returned  to  France,  except  for  brief  visits. 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 


1/9 


Thus  a  notable  amount  of  evidence  goes  to  show 
that  Jeanne  was  not  put  to  death  in  1431,  as  usually 
supposed,  but  was  alive,  married,  and  flourishing  in 
1444.  Upon  this  supposition,  certain  alleged  diffi- 
culties in  the  traditional  account  are  easily  disposed  of. 
Mr.  Delepierre  urges  upon  the  testimony  of  Perceval 
de  Cagny,  that  at  the  execution  in  Rouen  "  the  victim's 
face  was  covered  when  walking  to  the  stake,  while  at 
the  same  time  a  spot  had  been  chosen  for  the  execution 
that  permitted  the  populace  to  have  a  good  view. 
Why  this  contradiction  ?  A  place  is  chosen  to  enable 
the  people  to  see  everything,  but  the  victim  is  carefully 
hidden  from  their  sight."  Whether  otherwise  explica- 
ble or  not,  this  fact  is  certainly  consistent  with  the 
hypothesis  that  some  other  victim  was  secretly  substi- 
tuted for  Jeanne  by  the  English  authorities. 

We  have  thus  far  contented  ourselves  with  present- 
ing and  re-enforcing  Mr.  Delepierre's  statement  of  the 
case.  It  is  now  time  to  interpose  a  little  criticism.  We 
must  examine  our  data  somewhat  more  closely,  for 
vagueness  of  conception  allows  a  latitude  to  belief  which 
accuracy  of  conception  considerably  restricts. 

On  the  hypothesis  of  her  survival,  where  was  Jeanne, 
and  what  was  she  doing  all  the  time  from  her  capture 
before  Compiegne,  May  24,  1430,  until  her  appearance 
at  Metz,  May  20,  1436  ?  Mr.  Delepierre  reminds  us 
that  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  regent  of  France  for  the  Eng- 
lish king,  died  in  1435,  and  "  that  most  probably  Jeanne 
d'Arc  was  released  from  prison  after  this  event."  Now 
this  supposition  lands  us  in  a  fatally  absurd  conclusion. 
We  are,  in  fact,  asked  to  believe  that  the  English,  while 
holding  Jeanne  fast  in  their  clutches,  gratuitously  went 
through  the  horrid  farce  of  burning  some  one  else  in  her 
stead ;  and  that,  after  having  thus  inexplicably  be- 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 

haved,  they  further  stultified  themselves  by  letting  her 
go  scot-free,  that  their  foolishness  might  be  duly  exposed 
and  confuted.     Such  a  theory  is  childish.     If  Jeanne 
d'Arc  ever  survived  the  30th  May,  1431,  it  was  because 
she  escaped  from  prison  and  succeeded  in  hiding  herself 
until  safer  times.     When  could  she  have  done  this  ? 
In  a  sortie  from  Compiegne,  May  24,  1430,  she  was 
thrown  from  her  horse  by  a  Picard  archer  and  taken 
prisoner  by  the  Bastard  of  Vendome,  who  sold  her  to 
John  of  Luxembourg.     John  kept  her  in  close  custody 
at  Beaulieu  until  August.     While  there,  she  made  two 
attempts  to  escape ;  first,  apparently,  by  running  out 
through  a  door,  when  she  was  at  once  caught  by  the 
guards;   secondly,  by  jumping   from   a  high   window, 
when  the  shock  of  the  fall  was  so  great  that  she  lay 
insensible  on  the  ground   until  discovered.     She   was 
then  removed  to  Beaurevoir,  where  she  remained  until 
the  beginning  of  November.     By  this  time,  Philip  "  the 
Good,"  Duke  of  Burgundy,  had  made  up  his  mind  to 
sell  her  to  the  English  for  10,000  francs;  and  Jeanne 
was  accordingly  taken  to  Arras,  and  thence  to  Cotoy, 
where   she   was   delivered  to  the  English  by  Philip's 
officers.     So  far,  all  is  clear ;  but  here  it  may  be  asked, 
was  she  really  delivered  to  the  English,  or  did  Philip, 
pocketing  his  10,000  francs,  cheat  and  defraud  his  allies 
with  a  counterfeit  Jeanne  ?   Such  crooked  dealing  would 
have  been  in  perfect  keeping  with  his  character.    Though 
a  far  more  agreeable  and  gentlemanly  person,  he  was 
almost  as  consummate  and  artistic  a  rascal  as  his  great- 
great-great-grandson  and  namesake,  Philip  II.  of  Spain. 
His  duplicity  was  so  unfathomable  and  his  policy  so 
obscure,  that  it  would  be  hardly  safe  to  affirm  a  priori 
that  he  might  not,  for  reasons  best  known  to  himself, 
have  played  a  double  game  with  his  friend  the  Duke  of 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES.  iSi 

Bedford.  On  this  hypothesis,  he  would  of  course  keep 
Jeanne  in  close  custody  so  long  as  there  was  any  reason 
for  keeping  his  treachery  secret.  But  in  1436,  after  the 
death  of  Bedford  and  the  final  expulsion  of  the  English 
from  France,  no  harm  could  come  from  setting  her  at 
liberty. 

But  as  soon  as  we  cease  to  reason  a  priori,  this  is 
seen  to  be,  after  all,  a  lame  hypothesis.  No  one  can 
read  the  trial  of  Jeanne  at  Rouen,  the  questions  that 
were  put  to  her  and  the  answers  which  she  made,  with- 
out being  convinced  that  we  are  here  dealing  with  the 
genuine  Maid  and  not  with  a  substitute.  The  first  step 
of  a  counterfeit  Jeanne  would  have  naturally  been  to 
save  herself  from  the  flames  by  revealing  her  true  char- 
acter. Moreover,  among  the  multitudes  who  saw  her 
during  her  cruel  trial,  it  is  not  likely  that  none  were 
acquainted  with  the  true  Jeanne's  voice  and  features. 
We  must  therefore  conclude  that  Jeanne  d'Arc  was 
really  consigned  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  English. 
About  the  21st  of  November  she  was  taken  on  horse- 
back, strongly  guarded,  from  Cotoy  to  Rouen,  where  the 
trial  began  January  9,  1431.  On  the  21st  of  February 
she  appeared  before  the  court ;  on  the  1 3th  of  March 
she  was  examined  in  the  prison  by  an  inquisitor ;  and 
on  May  24,  the  Thursday  after  Pentecost,  upon  a  scaf- 
fold conspicuously  placed  in  the  Cemetery  of  St.  Ouen, 
she  publicly  recanted,  abjuring  her  "  heresies  "  and  ask- 
ing the  Church's  pardon  for  her  "  witchcraft."  We  may 
be  sure  that  the  Church  dignitaries  would  not  know- 
ingly have  made  such  public  display  of  a  counterfeit 
Jeanne ;  nor  could  they  well  have  been  deceived  them- 
selves under  such  circumstances.  It  may  indeed  be 
said,  to  exhaust  all  possible  suppositions,  that  a  young 
girl  wonderfully  similar  in  feature  and  voice  to  Jeanne 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 

d'Arc  was  palmed  off  upon  the  English  by  Duke  Philip, 
and  afterwards,  on  her  trial,  comported  herself  like  the 
Maid,  trusting  in  this  recantation  to  effect  her  release. 
But  we  consider  such  an  hypothesis  extremely  far- 
fetched, nor  does  it  accord  with  the  events  which  imme- 
diately followed.  It  seems  hardly  questionable  that  it 
was  the  real  Jeanne  who  publicly  recanted  on  the  24th 
of  May.  This  was  only  six  days  before  the  execution. 
Four  days  after,  on  Monday  the  28th,  it  was  reported 
that  Jeanne  had  relapsed,  that  she  had,  in  defiance  of 
the  Church's  prohibition,  clothed  herself  in  male  attire, 
which  had  been  left  in  a  convenient  place  by  the 
authorities,  expressly  to  test  her  sincerity.  On  the  next 
day  but  one,  the  woman  purporting  to  be  the  Maid  of 
Orleans  was  led  out,  with  her  face  carefully  covered, 
and  burnt  at  the  stake. 

Here  is  the  first  combination  of  circumstances  which 
bears  a  suspicious  look.  It  disposes  of  our  Burgundy 
hypothesis,  for  a  false  Jeanne,  after  recanting  to  secure 
her  safety,  would  never  have  stultified  herself  by  such  a 
barefaced  relapse.  But  the  true  Jeanne,  after  recanting, 
might  certainly  have  escaped.  Some  compassionate 
guard,  who  before  would  have  scrupled  to  assist  her 
while  under  the  ban  of  the  Church,  might  have  deemed 
himself  excusable  for  lending  her  his  aid  after  she  had 
been  absolved.  Postulating,  then,  that  Jeanne  escaped 
from  Eouen  between  the  24th  and  the  28th,  how  shall 
we  explain  what  happened  immediately  afterward  ? 

The  English  feared  Jeanne  d'Arc  as  much  as  they 
hated  her.  She  had,  by  her  mere  presence  at  the  head 
of  the  French  army,  turned  their  apparent  triumph  into 
ignominious  defeat.  In  those  days  the  true  psycho- 
logical explanation  of  such  an  event  was  by  no  means 
obvious.  While  the  French  attributed  the  result  to 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES.  ^3 

celestial  interposition  in  their  behalf,  the  English,  equally 
ready  to  admit  its  supernatural  character,  considered  the 
powers  of  hell  rather  than  those  of  heaven  to  have  been 
the  prime  instigators.  In  their  eyes  Jeanne  was  a  witch, 
and  it  was  at  least  their  cue  to  exhibit  her  as  such. 
They  might  have  put  her  to  death  when  she  first  reached 
Eouen.  Some  persons,  indeed,  went  so  far  as  to  advise 
that  she  should  be  sewed  up  in  a  sack  and  thrown  at 
once  into  the  Seine ;  but  this  was  not  what  the  authori- 
ties wanted.  The  whole  elaborate  trial,  and  the  extorted 
recantation,  were  devised  for  the  purpose  of  demonstrat- 
ing her  to  be  a  witch,  and  thus  destroying  her  credit 
with  the  common  people.  That  they  intended  after- 
wards to  burn  her  cannot  for  an  instant  be  doubted; 
that  was  the  only  fit  consummation  for  their  evil  work. 
Now  when,  at  the  end  of  the  week  after  Pentecost, 
the  bishops  and  inquisitors  at  Eouen  learned,  to  their 
dismay,  that  their  victim  had  escaped,  what  were  they 
to  do  ?  Confess  that  they  had  been  foiled,  and  create  a 
panic  in  the  army  by  the  news  that  their  dreaded  enemy 
was  at  liberty  ?  Or  boldly  carry  out  their  purposes  by 
a  fictitious  execution,  trusting  in  the  authority  which 
official  statements  always  carry,  and  shrewdly  foreseeing 
that,  after  her  recantation,  the  disgraced  Maid  would  no 
more  venture  to  claim  for  herself  the  leadership  of  the 
French  forces  ?  Clearly,  the  latter  would  have  been  the 
wiser  course.  We  may  assume,  then,  that,  by  the  after- 
noon of  the  28th,  the  story  of  the  relapse  was  promul- 
gated, as  a  suitable  preparation  for  what  was  to  come ; 
and  that  on  the  30th  the  poor  creature  who  had  been 
hastily  chosen  to  figure  as  the  condemned  Maid  was  led 
out,  with  face  closely  veiled,  to  perish  by  a  slow  fire 
in  the  old  market-place.  Meanwhile  the  true  Jeanne 
would  have  made  her  way,  doubtless,  in  what  to  her 


184 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 


was  the  effectual  disguise  of  a  woman's  apparel,  to  some 
obscure  place  of  safety,  outside  of  doubtful  France  and 
treacherous  Burgundy,  perhaps  in  Alsace  or  the  Vosges. 
Here  she  would  remain,  until  the  final  expulsion  of  the 
English  and  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty  of  peace  in  1436 
made  it  safe  for  her  to  show  herself,  when  she  would 
naturally  return  to  Lorraine  to  seek  her  family. 

The  comparative  obscurity  in  which  she  must  have 
remained  for  the  rest  of  her  life,  otherwise  quite  in- 
explicable on  any  hypothesis  of  her  survival,  is  in 
harmony  with  the  above-given  explanation.  The  in- 
gratitude of  King  Charles  towards  the  heroine  who 
had  won  him  his  crown  is  the  subject  of  common 
historical  remark.  M.  Wallon  insists  upon  the  cir- 
cumstance that,  after  her  capture  at  Compiegne,  no 
attempts  were  made  by  the  French  Court  to  ransom 
her  or  to  liberate  her  by  a  bold  coup  de  main.  And 
when,  at  Rouen,  she  appealed  in  the  name  of  the 
Church  to  the  Pope  to  grant  her  a  fair  trial,  not  a 
single  letter  was  written  by  the  Archbishop  of  Rheims, 
High  Chancellor  of  France,  to  his  suffragan,  the  Bishop 
of  Beauvais,  demanding  cognizance  of  the  proceedings. 
Nor  did  the  King  make  any  appeal  to  the  Pope,  to 
prevent  the  consummation  of  the  judicial  murder.  The 
Maid  was  deliberately  left  to  her  fate.  It  is  upon  her 
enemies  at  court,  La  Tremouille  and  Regnault  de  Char- 
tres,  that  we  must  lay  part  of  the  blame  for  this  wicked 
negligence.  But  it  is  also  probable  that  the  King,  and 
especially  his  clerical  advisers,  were  at  times  almost 
disposed  to  acquiesce  in  the  theory  of  Jeanne's  witch- 
craft. Admire  her  as  they  might,  they  could  not  help 
feeling  that  in  her  whole  behaviour  there  was  some- 
thing uncanny;  and,  after  having  reaped  the  benefits 
of  her  assistance,  they  were  content  to  let  her  shift  for 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES.  185 

herself.  This  affords  the  clew  to  the  King's  inconsis- 
tencies. It  may  be  thought  sufficient  to  explain  the 
fact  that  Jeanne  is  said  to  have  received  public  testi- 
monials at  Orleans,  while  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  she  visited  Paris.  It  may  help  to  dispose  of  the 
objection  that  she  virtually  disappears  from  history 
after  the  date  of  the  tragedy  at  Eouen. 

Nevertheless,  this  last  objection  is  a  weighty  one, 
and  cannot  easily  be  got  rid  of.  It  appears  to  me 
utterly  incredible  that,  if  Jeanne  d'Arc  had  really 
survived,  we  should  find  no  further  mention  of  her 
than  such  as  haply  occurs  in  one  or  two  town-records 
and  dilapidated  account-books.  If  she  was  alive  in 
1436,  and  corresponding  with  the  King,  some  of 
her  friends  at  court  must  have  got  an  inkling  of  the 
true  state  of  things.  "Why  did  they  not  parade  their 
knowledge,  to  the  manifest  discomfiture  of  La  Tre- 
mouille  and  his  company  ?  Or  why  did  not  Pierre  du 
Lis  cause  it  to  be  proclaimed  that  the  English  were 
liars,  his  sister  being  safely  housed  in  Metz  ? 

In  the  mere  interests  of  historical  criticism,  we  have 
said  all  that  we  could  in  behalf  of  Mr.  Delepierre's 
hypothesis.  But  as  to  the  facts  upon  which  it  rests, 
we  may  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  surname 
Arc  or  "  Bow  "  was  not  uncommon  in  those  days,  while 
the  Christian  name  Jeanne  was  and  now.  is  the  very 
commonest  of  French  names.  There  might  have  been 
a  hundred  Jeanne  d'Arcs,  all  definable  as  pucelle  or 
maid,  just  as  we  say  "  spinster " :  we  even  read  of  one 
in  the  time  of  the  Revolution.  We  have,  therefore, 
no  doubt  that  Robert  des  Hermoises  married  a  Jeanne 
d'Arc,  who  may  also  have  been  a  maid  of  Orleans; 
but  this  does  not  prove  her  to  have  been  the  historic 
Jeanne.  Secondly,  as  to  the  covering  of.  the  face,  we 


1 86  HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 

may  mention  the  fact,  hitherto  withheld,  that  it  was 
by  no  means  an  uncommon  circumstance :  the  victims 
of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  were  usually  led  to  the  stake 
with  veiled  faces.  Thirdly,  the  phrase  "jmques  a  son 
absentement "  is  hopelessly  ambiguous,  and  may  as  well 
refer  to  Pierre  du  Lis  himself  as  to  his  sister. 

These  brief  considerations  seem  to  knock  away  all 
the  main  props  of  Mr.  Delepierre's  hypothesis,  save 
that  furnished  by  the  apparent  testimony  of  Jeanne's 
brothers,  given  at  second  hand  in  the  Metz  archives. 
And  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  phenomena  of 
mediaeval  delusions  will  be  unwilling  to  draw  too  hasty 
an  inference  from  this  alone.  From  the  Emperor  Nero 
to  Don  Sebastian  of  Portugal,  there  have  been  many 
instances  of  the  supposed  reappearance  of  persons  gen- 
erally believed  to  be  dead.  For  my  own  part,  therefore, 
I  am  by  no  means  inclined  to  adopt  the  hypothesis  of 
Jeanne's  survival,  although  I  have  endeavoured  to  give 
it  tangible  shape  and  plausible  consistency.  But  the 
fact  that  so  much  can  be  said  in  behalf  of  a  theory 
running  counter  not  only  to  universal  tradition,  but 
also  to  such  a  vast  body  of  contemporaneous  testimony, 
should  teach  us  to  be  circumspect  in  holding  our 
opinions,  and  charitable  in  our  treatment  of  those  who 
dissent  from  them.  For  those  who  can  discover  in  the 
historian  Eenan  and  the  critic  Strauss  nothing  but  the 
malevolence  of  incredulity,  the  case  of  Jeanne  d'Arc, 
duly  contemplated,  may  serve  as  a  wholesome  lesson. 

We  have  devoted  so  much  space  to  this  problem,  by 
far  the  most  considerable  of  those  treated  in  Mr.  Dele- 
pierre's book,  that  we  have  hardly  room  for  any  of  the 
others.  But  a  false  legend  concerning  Solomon  de 
Caus,  the  supposed  original  inventor  of  the  steam- 
engine,  is  so  instructive  that  we  must  give  a  brief 
account  of  it. 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 

In  1834  "there  appeared  in  the  Musee  des  Families 
a  letter  from  the  celebrated  Marion  Delorme,  supposed 
to  have  been  written  on  the  3d  February,  1641,  to  her 
lover  Cinq-Mars."  In  this  letter  it  is  stated  that  De 
Caus  came  four  years  ago  [1637]  from  Normandy,  to 
inform  the  King  concerning  a  marvellous  invention 
which  he  had  made,  being  nothing  less  than  the  appli- 
cation of  steam  to  the  propulsion  of  carriages.  "The 
Cardinal  [Richelieu]  dismissed  this  fool  without  giving 
him  a  hearing."  But  De  Caus,  nowise  discouraged, 
followed  close  upon  the  autocrat's  heels  wherever  he 
went,  and  so  teased  him,  that  the  Cardinal,  out  of 
patience,  sent  him  off  to  a  madhouse,  where  he  passed 
the  remainder  of  his  days  behind  a  grated  window, 
proclaiming  his  invention  to  the  passengers  in  the 
street,  and  calling  upon  them  to  release  him.  Marion 
gives  a  graphic  account  of  her  visit,  accompanied  by 
the  famous  Lord  Worcester,  to  the  asylum  at  Bicetre, 
where  they  saw  De  Caus  at  his  window ;  and  Worcester, 
in  whose  mind  the  conception  of  the  steam-engine  was 
already  taking  shape,  informed  her  that  the  raving 
prisoner  was  not  a  madman,  but  a  genius.  A  great 
stir  was  made  by  this  letter.  The  anecdote  was  copied 
into  standard  works,  and  represented  in  engravings. 
Yet  it  was  a  complete  hoax.  De  Caus  was  not  only 
never  confined  in  a  madhouse,  but  he  was-  architect  to 
Louis  XIII.  up  to  the  time  of  his  death,  in  1630,  just 
eleven  years  before  Marion  Delorme  was  said  to  have 
seen  him  at  his  grated  window ! 

"  On  tracing  this  hoax  to  its  source,"  says  Mr.  Dele- 
pierre,  "  we  find  that  M.  Henri  Berthoud,  a  literary  man 
of  some  repute,  and  a  constant  contributor  to  the 
Musee  des  Families,  confesses  that  the  letter  attributed 
to  Marion  was  in  fact  written  by  himself.  The  editor 


!88  HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 

of  this  journal  had  requested  Gavarni  to  furnish  him 
with  a  drawing  for  a  tale  in  which  a  madman  was 
introduced  looking  through  the  bars  of  his  cell.  The 
drawing  was  executed  and  engraved,  but  arrived  too 
late;  and  the  tale,  which  could  not  wait,  appeared 
without  the  illustration.  However,  as  the  wood-en- 
graving was  effective,  and,  moreover,  was  paid  for,  the 
editor  was  unwilling  that  it  should  be  useless.  Ber- 
thoud  was,  therefore,  commissioned  to  look  for  a  subject 
and  to  invent  a  story  to  which  the  engraving  might 
be  applied.  Strangely  enough,  the  world  refused  to 
believe  in  M.  Berthoud's  confession,  so  great  a  hold  had 
the  anecdote  taken  on  the  public  mind;  and  a  Paris 
newspaper  went  so  far  even  as  to  declare  that  the 
original  autograph  of  this  letter  was  to  be  seen  in  a 
library  in  Normandy !  M.  Berthoud  wrote  again,  deny- 
ing its  existence,  and  offered  a  million  francs  to  any 
one  who  would  produce  the  said  letter." 

From  this  we  may  learn  two  lessons,  the  first  being 
that  utterly  baseless  but  plausible  stories  may  arise  in 
queer  ways.  In  the  above  case,  the  most  far-fetched 
hypothesis  to  account  for  the  origin  of  the  legend  could 
hardly  have  been  as  apparently  improbable  as  the 
reality.  Secondly,  we  may  learn  that  if  a  myth  once 
gets  into  the  popular  mind,  it  is  next  to  impossible  to 
get  it  out  again.  In  the  Castle  of  Heidelberg  there 
is  a  portrait  of  De  Caus,  and  a  folio  volume  of  his 
works,  accompanied  by  a  note,  in  which  this  letter  of 
Marion  Delorme  is  unsuspectingly  cited  as  genuine. 
And  only  three  years  ago,  at  a  public  banquet  at 
Limoges,  a  well-known  French  Senator  and  man  of 
letters  made  a  speech,  in  which  he  retailed  the  story 
of  the  madhouse  for  the  edification  of  his  hearers.  Truly 
a  popular  error  has  as  many  lives  as  a  cat;  it  comes 


HISTORICAL  DIFFICULTIES. 

walking  in  long  after  you  have  imagined  it  effectually 
strangled. 

In  conclusion,  we  may  remark  that  Mr.  Delepierre 
does  very  scant  justice  to  many  of  the  interesting 
questions  which  he  discusses.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that 
he  has  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  argue  his  points 
more  thoroughly,  and  that  he  has  not  been  more  careful 
in  making  statements  of  fact.  He  sometimes  makes 
strange  blunders,  the  worst  of  which,  perhaps,  is  con- 
tained in  his  article  on  Petrarch  and  Laura.  He  thinks 
Laura  was  merely  a  poetical  allegory,  and  such  was 
the  case,  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  with  Dante  himself,  whose 
Beatrice  was  a  child  who  died  at  nine  years  of  age." 
Dante's  Beatrice  died  on  the  9th  of  June,  1290,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-four,  having  been  the  wife  of  Simone  del 
Bardi  rather  more  than  three  years. 

October,  1868. 


IX. 

THE  FAMINE  OF  1770   IN  BENGAL.* 

NO  intelligent  reader  can  advance  fifty  pages  in  this 
volume  without  becoming  aware  that  he  has  got 
hold  of  a  very  remarkable  book.  Mr.  Hunter's  style,  to 
begin  with,  is  such  as  is  written  only  by  men  of  large 
calibre  and  high  culture.  No  words  are  wasted.  The 
narrative  flows  calmly  and  powerfully  along,  like  a  geo- 
metrical demonstration,  omitting  nothing  which  is  sig- 
nificant, admitting  nothing  which  is  irrelevant,  glowing 
with  all  the  warmth  of  rich  imagination  and  sympa- 
thetic genius,  yet  never  allowing  any  overt  manifesta- 
tion of  feeling,  ever  concealing  the  author's  personality 
beneath  the  unswerving  exposition  of  the  subject-mat- 
ter. That  highest  art,  which  conceals  art,  Mr.  Hunter 
appears  to  have  learned  well.  With  him,  the  curtain  is 
the  picture. 

Such  a  style  as  this  would  suffice  to  make  any  book 
interesting,  in  spite  of  the  remoteness  of  the  subject. 
But  the  "Annals  of  Eural  Bengal"  do  not  concern  us  so 
remotely  as  one  might  at  first  imagine.  The  phenomena 
of  the  moral  and  industrial  growth  or  stagnation  of  a 
highly-endowed  people  must  ever  possess  the  interest 
of  fascination  for  those  who  take  heed  of  the  maxim 

*  The  Annals  of  Rural  Bengal.  By  W.  "W.  Hunter.  Vol.  I.  The 
Ethnical  Frontier  of  Lower  Bengal,  with  the  Ancient  Principalities  of 
Beerbhoom  and  Bishenpore.  Second  Edition.  New  York  :  Leypoldt 
and  Holt.  1868.  8vo.,  pp.  xvi.,  475. 


TEE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 


IQI 


that  "  history  is  philosophy  teaching  by  example."  Na- 
tional prosperity  depends  upon  circumstances  sufficiently 
general  to  make  the  experience  of  one  country  of  great 
value  to  another,  though  ignorant  Bourbon  dynasties 
and  Eump  Congresses  refuse  to  learn  the  lesson.  It  is 
of  the  intimate  every-day  life  of  rural  Bengal  that  Mr. 
Hunter  treats.  He  does  not,  like  old  historians,  try  our 
patience  with  a  bead-roll  of  names  that  have  earned  no 
just  title  to  remembrance,  or  dazzle  us  with  a  bountiful 
display  of  "  barbaric  pearls  and  gold,"  or  lead  us  in  the 
gondolas  of  Buddhist  kings  down  sacred  rivers,  amid  "  a 
summer  fanned  with  spice";  but  he  describes  the  la- 
bours and  the  sufferings,  the  mishaps  and  the  good  for- 
tune, of  thirty  millions  of  people,  who,  however  dusky 
may  be  their  hue,  tanned  by  the  tropical  suns  of  fifty 
centuries,  are  nevertheless  members  of  the  imperial 
Aryan  race,  descended  from  the  cool  highlands  eastward 
of  the  Caspian,  where,  long  before  the  beginning  of  re- 
corded history,  their  ancestors  and  those  of  the  Anglo- 
American  were  indistinguishably  united  iu  the  same 
primitive  community. 

The  narrative  portion  of  the  present  volume  is  con- 
cerned mainly  with  the  social  and  economical  disorgani- 
zation wrought  by  the  great  famine  of  1770,  and  with 
the  attempts  of  the  English  government  to  remedy  the 
same.  The  remainder  of  the  book  is  occupied  with  in- 
quiries into  the  ethnic  character  of  the  population  of 
Bengal,  and  particularly  with  an  exposition  of  the  pecu- 
liarities of  the  language,  religion,  customs,  and  institu- 
tions of  the  Santals,  or  hill-tribes  of  Beerbhoom.  A  few 
remarks  on  the  first  of  these  topics  may  not  be  uninter- 
esting. 

Throughout  the  entire  course  of  recorded  European 
history,  from  the  remote  times  of  which  the  Homeric 


192 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 


poems  preserve  the  dim  tradition  down  to  the  present 
moment,  there  has  occurred  no  calamity  at  once  so  sud- 
den and  of  such  appalling  magnitude  as  the  famine 
which  in  the  spring  and  summer  of  1770  nearly  exter- 
minated the  ancient  civilization  of  Bengal.  It  presents 
that  aspect  of  preternatural  vastness  which  characterizes 
the  continent  of  Asia  and  all  that  concerns  it.  The 
Black  Death  of  the  fourteenth  century  was,  perhaps, 
the  most  fearful  visitation  which  has  ever  afflicted  the 
Western  world.  But  in  the  concentrated  misery  which 
it  occasioned  the  Bengal  famine  surpassed  it,  even  as 
the  Himalayas  dwarf  by  comparison  the  highest  peaks 
of  Switzerland.  It  is,  moreover,  the  key  to  the  history 
of  Bengal  during  the  next  forty  years  ;  and  as  such, 
merits,  from  an  economical  point  of  view,  closer  atten- 
tion than  it  has  hitherto  received. 

Lower  Bengal  gathers  in  three  harvests  each  year ;  in 
the  spring,  in  the  early  autumn,  and  in  December,  the 
last  being  the  great  rice-crop,  the  harvest  on  which  the 
sustenance  of  the  people  depends.  Through  the  year 
1769  there  was  great  scarcity,  owing  to  the  partial  fail- 
ure of  the  crops  of  1768,  but  the  spring  rains  appeared 
to  promise  relief,  and  in  spite  of  the  warning  appeals  of 
provincial  officers,  the  government  was  slow  to  take 
alarm,  and  continued  rigorously  to  enforce  the  land-tax. 
But  in  September  the  rains  suddenly  ceased.  Through- 
out the  autumn  there  ruled  a  parching  drought ;  and  the 
rice-fields,  according  to  the  description  of  a  native  super- 
intendent of  Bishenpore,  "became  like  fields  of  dried 
straw."  Nevertheless,  the  government  at  Calcutta  made 
—  with  one  lamentable  exception,  hereafter  to  be  no- 
ticed —  no  legislative  attempt  to  meet  the  consequences 
of  this  dangerous  condition  of  things.  The  administra- 
tion of  local  affairs  was  still,  at  that  date,  intrusted  to 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL.  JQ^ 

native  officials.  The  whole  internal  regulation  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  famous  Muhamad  Eeza  Khan.  Hin- 
du or  Mussulman  assessors  pried  into  every  barn  and 
shrewdly  estimated  the  probable  dimensions  of  the  crops 
on  every  field ;  and  the  courts,  as  well  as  the  police, 
were  still  in  native  hands.  "  These  men,"  says  our  au- 
thor, "knew  the  country,  its  capabilities,  its  average 
yield,  and  its  average  requirements,  with  an  accuracy 
that  the  most  painstaking  English  official  can  seldom 
hope  to  attain  to.  They  had  a  strong  interest  in  repre- 
senting things  to  be  worse  than  they  were ;  for  the  more 
intense  the  scarcity,  the  greater  the  merit  in  collecting 
the  land-tax.  Every  consultation  is  filled  with  their 
apprehensions  and  highly-coloured  accounts  of  the  pub- 
lic distress ;  but  it  does  not  appear  that  the  conviction 
entered  the  minds  of  the  Council  during  the  previous 
winter  months,  that  the  question  was  not  so  much  one 
of  revenue  as  of  depopulation."  In  fact,  the  local  offi- 
cers had  cried  "Wolf!"  too  often.  Government  was 
slow  to  believe  them,  and  announced  that  nothing  bet- 
ter could  be  expected  than  the  adoption  of  a  generous 
policy  toward  those  landholders  whom  the  loss  of  har- 
vest had  rendered  unable  to  pay  their  land-tax.  But 
very  few  indulgences  were  granted,  and  the  tax  was  not 
diminished,  but  on  the  contrary  was,  in  the  month  of 
April,  1770,  increased  by  ten  per  cent  for  the  following 
year.  The  character  of  the  Bengali  people  must  also  be 
taken  into  the  account  in  explaining  this  strange  action 
on  the  part  of  the  government. 

"  From  the  first  appearance  of  Lower  Bengal  in  his- 
tory, its  inhabitants  have  been  reticent,  self-contained, 
distrustful  of  foreign  observation,  in  a  degree  without 
parallel  among  other  equally  civilized  nations.  The 
cause  of  this  taciturnity  will  afterwards  be  clearly  ex- 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 

plained ;  but  no  one  who  is  acquainted  either  with  the 
past  experiences  or  the  present  condition  of  the  people 
can  be  ignorant  of  its  results.  Local  officials  may  write 
alarming  reports,  but  their  apprehensions  seem  to  be 
contradicted  by  the  apparent  quiet  that  prevails.  Out- 
ward, palpable  proofs  of  suffering  are  often  wholly  want- 
ing; and  even  when,  as  in  1770,  such  proofs  abound, 
there  is  generally  no  lack  of  evidence  on  the  other  side. 
The  Bengali  bears  existence  with  a  composure  that 
neither  accident  nor  chance  can  ruffle.  He  becomes 
silently  rich  or  uncomplainingly  poor.  The  emotional 
part  of  his  nature  is  in  strict  subjection,  his  resentment 
enduring  but  unspoken,  his  gratitude  of  the  sort  that 
silently  descends  from  generation  to  generation.  The 
passion  for  privacy  reaches  its  climax  in  the  domestic 
relations.  An  outer  apartment,  in  even  the  humblest 
households,  is  set  apart  for  strangers  and  the  transaction 
of  business,  but  everything  behind  it  is  a  mystery.  The 
most  intimate  friend  does  not  venture  to  make  those 
commonplace  kindly  inquiries  about  a  neighbour's  wife 
or  daughter  which  European  courtesy  demands  from 
mere  acquaintances.  This  family  privacy  is  maintained 
at  any  price.  During  the  famine  of  1866  it  was  found 
impossible  to  render  public  charity  available  to  the 
female  members  of  the  respectable  classes,  and  many  a 
rural  household  starved  slowly  to  death  without  utter- 
ing a  complaint  or  making  a  sign. 

"All  through  the  stifling  summer  of  1770  the  people 
went  on  dying.  The  husbandmen  sold  their  cattle; 
they  sold  their  implements  of  agriculture ;  they  de- 
voured their  seed-grain ;  they  sold  their  sons  and  daugh- 
ters, till  at  length  no  buyer  of  children  could  be  found ; 
they  ate  the  leaves  of  trees  and  the  grass  of  the  field-, 
and  in  June,  1770,  the  Eesident  at  the  Durbar  affirmed 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 


195 


that  the  living  were  feeding  on  the  dead.  Day  and 
night  a  torrent  of  famished  and  disease-stricken  wretches 
poured  into  the  great  cities.  At  an  early  period  of  the 
year  pestilence  had  broken  out.  In  March  we  find 
small-pox  at  Moorshedabad,  where  it  glided  through  the 
vice-regal  mutes,  and  cut  off  the  Prince  Syfut  in  his 
palace.  The  streets  were  blocked  up  with  promiscuous 
heaps  of  the  dying  and  dead.  Interment  could  not  do 
its  work  quick  enough ;  even  the  dogs  and  jackals,  the 
public  scavengers  of  the  East,  became  unable  to  accom- 
plish their  revolting  work,  and  the  multitude  of  mangled 
and  festering  corpses  at  length  threatened  the  existence 

of  the  citizens In  1770,  the  rainy  season  brought 

relief,  and  before  the  end  of  September  the  province 
reaped  an  abundant  harvest.  But  the  relief  came  too 
late  to  avert  depopulation.  Starving  and  shelterless 
crowds  crawled  despairingly  from  one  deserted  village 
to  another  in  a  vain  search  for  food,  or  a  resting-place 
in  which  to  hide  themselves  from  the  rain.  The  epi- 
demics incident  to  the  season  were  thus  spread  over  the 
whole  country ;  and,  until  the  close  of  the  year,  disease 
continued  so  prevalent  as  to  form  a  subject  of  commu- 
nication from  the  government  in  Bengal  to  the  Court  of 
Directors.  Millions  of  famished  wretches  died  in  the 
struggle  to  live  through  the  few  intervening  weeks  that 
separated  them  from  the  harvest,  their  last  gaze  being 
probably  fixed  on  the  densely-covered  fields  that  would 

ripen  only  a  little  too  late  for  them Three  months 

later,  another  bountiful  harvest,  the  great  rice-crop  of 
the  year,  was  gathered  in.  Abundance  returned  to  Ben- 
gal as  suddenly  as  famine  had  swooped .  down  upon  it, 
and  in  reading  some  of  the  manuscript  records  of  De- 
cember it  is  difficult  to  realize  that  the  scenes  of  the 
preceding  ten  months  have  not  been  hideous  phantas- 


I96  THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 

magoria  or  a  long,  troubled  dream.  On  Christmas  eve, 
the  Council  in  Calcutta  wrote  home  to  the  Court  of  Di- 
rectors that  the  scarcity  had  entirely  ceased,  and,  in- 
credible as  it  may  seem,  that  unusual  plenty  had 

returned So  generous  had  been  the  harvest  that 

the  government  proposed  at  once  to  lay  in  its  military 
stores  for  the  ensuing  year,  and  expected  to  obtain  them 
at  a  very  cheap  rate." 

Such  sudden  transitions  from  the  depths  of  misery 
to  the  most  exuberant  plenty  are  by  no  means  rare 
in  the  history  of  Asia,  where  the  various  centres  of 
civilization  are,  in  an  economical  sense,  so  isolated  from 
each  other  that  the  welfare  of  the  population  is  nearly 
always  absolutely  dependent  on  the  irregular  and  ap- 
parently capricious  bounty  of  nature.  For  the  three 
years  following  the  dreadful  misery  above  described, 
harvests  of  unprecedented  abundance  were  gathered 
in.  Yet  how  inadequate  they  were  to  repair  the  fear- 
ful damage  wrought  by  six  months  of  starvation,  the 

o  o  •/ 

history  of  the  next  quarter  of  a  century  too  plainly 
reveals.  "  Plenty  had  indeed  returned,"  says  our  annal- 
ist, "but  it  had  returned  to  a  silent  and  deserted 
province."  The  extent  of  the  depopulation  is  to  our 
Western  imaginations  almost  incredible.  During  those 
six  months  of  horror,  more  than  ten  millions  of  people 
had  perished !  It  was  as  if  the  entire  population  of 
our  three  or  four  largest  States  —  man,  woman,  and 
child  —  were  to  be  utterly  swept  away  between  now 
and  next  August,  leaving  the  region  between  the  Hud- 
son and  Lake  Michigan  as  quiet  and  deathlike  as  the 
buried  streets  of  Pompeii.  Yet  the  estimate  is  based 
upon  most  accurate  and  trustworthy  official  returns; 
and  Mr.  Hunter  may  well  say  that  "it  represents  an 
aggregate  of  individual  suffering  which  no  European 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 


197 


nation  has  been  called  upon  to  contemplate  within 
historic  times." 

This  unparalleled  calamity  struck  down  impartially 
the  rich  and  the  poor.  The  old,  aristocratic  families 
of  Lower  Bengal  were  irretrievably  ruined.  The  Rajah 
of  Burdwan,  whose  possessions  were  so  vast  that,  travel 
as  far  as  he  would,  he  always  slept  under  a  roof  of  his 
own  and  within  his  own  jurisdiction,  died  in  such 
indigence  that  his  son  had  to  melt  down  the  family 
plate  and  beg  a  loan  from  the  government  in  order  to 
discharge  his  father's  funeral  expenses.  And  our  author 
gives  other  similar  instances.  The  wealthy  natives  who 
were  appointed  to  assess  and  collect  the  internal  rev- 
enue, being  unable  to  raise  the  sums  required  by  the 
government,  were  in  many  cases  imprisoned,  or  their 
estates  were  confiscated  and  re-let  in  order  to  discharge 
the  debt. 

For  fifteen  years  the  depopulation  went  on  increas- 
ing. The  children  in  a  community,  requiring  most 
nourishment  to  sustain  their  activity,  are  those  who 
soonest  succumb  to  famine.  "  Until  1785,"  says  our 
author,  "the  old  died  off  without  there  being  any 
rising  generation  to  step  into  their  places."  From  lack 
of  cultivators,  one  third  of  the  surface  of  Bengal  fell 
out  of  tillage  and  became  waste  land.  The  landed 
proprietors  began  each  "  to  entice  away  the  tenants  of 
his  neighbour,  by  offering  protection  against  judicial 
proceedings,  and  farms  at  very  low  rents."  The  dis- 
putes and  deadly  feuds  which  arose  from  this  practice 
were,  perhaps,  the  least  fatal  of  the  evil  results  which 
flowed  from  it.  For  the  competition  went  on  until, 
the  tenants  obtaining  their  holdings  at  half-rates,  the 
resident  cultivators  —  who  had  once  been  the  wealthiest 
farmers  in  the  country  —  were  no  longer  able  to  com- 


igS  THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 

pete  on  such  terms.  They  began  to  sell,  lease,  or  desert 
their  property,  migrating  to  less  afflicted  regions,  or 
flying  to  the  hills  on  the  frontier  to  adopt  a  savage  life. 
But,  in  a  climate  like  that  of  Northeastern  India,  it 
takes  but  little  time  to  transform  a  tract  of  untilled 
land  into  formidable  wilderness.  When  the  functions 
of  society  are  impeded,  nature  is  swift  to  assert  its 
claims.  And  accordingly,  in  1789,  "Lord  Cornwallis, 
after  three  years'  vigilant  inquiry,  pronounced  one  third 
of  the  company's  territories  in  Bengal  to  be  a  jungle, 
inhabited  only  by  wild  beasts." 

On  the  Western  frontier  of  Beerbhoom  the  state  of 
affairs  was,  perhaps,  most  calamitous.  In  1776,  four 
acres  out  of  every  seven  remained  untilled.  Though 
in  earlier  times  this  district  had  been  a  favourite  high- 
way for  armies,  by  the  year  1780  it  had  become  an 
almost  impassable  jungle.  A  small  company  of  Sepoys, 
which  in  that  year  by  heroic  exertions  forced  its  way 
through,  was  obliged  to  traverse  120  miles  of  trackless 
forest,  swarming  with  tigers  and  black  shaggy  bears. 
In  1789  this  jungle  "continued  so  dense  as  to  shut 
off  all  communication  bet\veen  the  two  most  important 
towns,  and  to  cause  the  mails  to  be  carried  by  a  circuit 
of  fifty  miles  through  another  district." 

Such  a  state  of  things  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  realize ; 
but  the  monotonous  tale  of  disaster  and  suffering  is  not 
yet  complete.  Beerbhoom  was,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, given  over  to  tigers.  "  A  belt  of  jungle,  filled 
with  wild  beasts,  formed  round  each  village."  At  night- 
fall the  hungry  animals  made  their  dreaded  incursions, 
carrying  away  cattle,  and  even  women  and  children, 
and  devouring  them.  "The  official  records  frequently 
speak  of  the  mail-bag  being  carried  off  by  wild  beasts." 
So  great  was  the  damage  done  by  these  depredation^ 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 


199 


that  "the  company  offered  a  reward  for  each  tiger's 
head,  sufficient  to  maintain  a  peasant's  family  in  com- 
fort for  three  months ;  an  item  of  expenditure  it  deemed 
so  necessary,  that,  when  under  extraordinary  pressure 
it  had  to  suspend  all  payments,  the  tiger-money  and 
diet  allowance  for  prisoners  were  the  sole  exceptions  to 
the  rule."  Still  more  formidable  foes  were  found  in 
the  herds  of  wild  elephants,  which  came  trooping  along 
in  the  rear  of  the  devastation  caused  by  the  famine. 
In  the  course  of  a  few  years  fifty-six  villages  were 
reported  as  destroyed  by  elephants,  and  as  having 
lapsed  into  jungle  in  consequence;  "and  an  official 
return  states  that  forty  market-towns  throughout  the 
district  had  been  deserted  from  the  same  cause.  In 
many  parts  of  the  country  the  peasantry  did  not  dare 
to  sleep  in  their  houses,  lest  they  should  be  buried 
beneath  them  during  the  night."  These  terrible  beasts 
continued  to  infest  the  province  as  late  as  1810. 

But  society  during  these  dark  days  had  even  worse 
enemies  than  tigers  and  elephants.  The  barbarous  high- 
landers,  of  a  lower  type  of  mankind,  nourishing  for 
forty  centuries  a  hatred  of  their  Hindu  supplanters, 
like  that  which  the  Apache  bears  against  the  white 
frontiersman,  seized  the  occasion  to  renew  their  inroads 
upon  the  lowland  country.  Year  by  year  they  de- 
scended from  their  mountain  fastnesses,  plundering  and 
burning.  Many  noble  Hindu  families,  ousted  by  the 
tax-collectors  from  their  estates,  began  to  seek  subsist- 
ence from  robbery.  Others,  consulting  their  selfish 
interests  amid  the  general  distress,  "found  it  more 
profitable  to  shelter  banditti  on  their  estates,  levying 
blackmail  from  the  surrounding  villages  as  the  price  of 
immunity  from  depredation,  and  sharing  in  the  plunder 
of  such  as  would  not  corne  to  terms.  Their  country 


20Q  THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 

houses  were  robber  strongholds,  and  the  early  English 
administrators  of  Bengal  have  left  it  on  record  that 
a  gang-robbery  never  occurred  without  a  landed  pro- 
prietor being  at  the  bottom  of  it."  The  peasants  were 
not  slow  to  follow  suit,  and  those  who  were  robbed  of 
their  winter's  store  had  no  alternative  left  but  to 
become  robbers  themselves.  The  thieveries  of  the  Fa- 
keers,  or  religious  mendicants,  and  the  bold,  though 
stealthy  attacks  of  Thugs  and  Dacoits  —  members  of 
Masonic  brotherhoods,  which  at  all  times  have  lived  by 
robbery  and  assassination  —  added  to  the  general  tur- 
moil. In  the  cold  weather  of  1772  the  province  was 
ravaged  far  and  wide  by  bands  of  armed  freebooters, 
fifty  thousand  strong;  and  to  such  a  pass  did  things 
arrive  that  the  regular  forces  sent  by  Warren  Hastings 
to  preserve  order  were  twice  disastrously  routed ;  while, 
in  Mr.  Hunter's  graphic  language,  "villages  high  up 
the  Ganges  lived  by  housebreaking  in  Calcutta."  In 
English  mansions  "it  was  the  invariable  practice  for 
the  porter  to  shut  the  outer  door  at  the  commencement 
of  each  meal,  and  not  to  open  it  till  the  butler  brought 
him  word  that  the  plate  was  safely  locked  up."  And 
for  a  long  time  nearly  all  traffic  ceased  upon  the  impe- 
rial roads. 

This  state  of  things,  which  amounted  to  chronic  civil 
war,  induced  Lord  Cornwallis  in  1788  to  place  the  prov- 
ince under  the  direct  military  control  of  an  English  offi- 
cer. The  administration  of  Mr.  Keating  —  the  first 
hardy  gentleman  to  whom  this  arduous  office  was  as- 
signed —  is  minutely  described  by  our  author.  For  our 
present  purpose  it  is  enough  to  note  that  two  years  of 
severe  campaigning,  attended  and  followed  by  relentless 
punishment  of  all  transgressors,  was  required  to  put  an 
end  to  the  disorders. 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL.  2OI 

Such  was  the  appalling  misery,  throughout  a  commu- 
nity of  thirty  million  persons,  occasioned  by  the  failure 
of  the  winter  rice-crop  in  1769.  In  abridging  Mr.  Hun- 
ter's account  we  have  adhered  as  closely  to  our  original 
as  possible,  but  he  who  would  obtain  adequate  knowl- 
edge of  this  tale  of  woe  must  seek  it  in  the  ever  memo- 
rable description  of  the  historian  himself.  The  first 
question  which  naturally  occurs  to  the  reader  —  though, 
as  Mr.  Hunter  observes,  it  would  have  been  one  of  the 
last  to  occur  to  the  Oriental  mind  —  is,  Who  was  to 
blame  ?  To  what  culpable  negligence  was  it  due  that 
such  a  dire  calamity  was  not  foreseen,  and  at  least  par- 
tially warded  off?  We  shall  find  reason  to  believe  that 
it  could  not  have  been  adequately  foreseen,  and  that 
no  legislative  measures  could  in  that  state  of  society 
have  entirely  prevented  it.  Yet  it  will  appear  that 
the  government,  with  the  best  of  intentions,  did  all  in 
its  power  to  make  matters  worse ;  and  that  to  its  blun- 
dering ignorance  the  distress. which  followed  is  largely 
due. 

The  first  duty  incumbent  upon  the  government  in  a 
case  like  that  of  the  failure  of  the  winter  rice-crop  of 
1769,  was  to  do  away  with  all  hindrance  to  the  impor- 
tation of  food  into  the  province.  One  chief  cause  of  the 
far-reaching  distress  wrought  by  great  Asiatic  famines 
has  been  the  almost  complete  commercial  isolation  of 
Asiatic  communities.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  Euro- 
pean communities  were  also,  though  to  a  far  less  extent, 
isolated  from  each  other,  and  in  those  days  periods  of 
famine  were  comparatively  frequent  and  severe.  And 
one  of  the  chief  causes  which  now  render  the  occurrence 
of  a  famine  on  a  great  scale  almost  impossible  in  any 
part  of  the  civilized  world  is  the  increased  commercial 
solidarity  of  civilized  nations.  Increased  facility  of  dis- 

9* 


202  THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 

tribution  has  operated  no  less  effectively  than  improved 
methods  of  production. 

Now,  in  1770  the  province  of  Lower  Bengal  was  in  a 
state  of  almost  complete  commercial  isolation  from  other 
communities.  Importation  of  food  on  an  adequate  scale 
was  hardly  possible.  "A  single  fact  speaks  volumes  as 
to  the  isolation  of  each  district.  An  abundant  harvest, 
we  are  repeatedly  told,  was  as  disastrous  to  the  revenues 
as  a  bad  one ;  for,  when  a  large  quantity  of  grain  had 
to  be  carried  to  market,  the  cost  of  carriage  swallowed 
up  the  price  obtained.  Indeed,  even  if  the  means  of 
intercommunication  and  transport  had  rendered  impor- 
tation practicable,  the  province  had  at  that  time  no 
money  to  give  in  exchange  for  food.  Not  only  had  its 
various  divisions  a  separate  currency  which  would  pass 
nowhere  else  except  at  a  ruinous  exchange,  but  in  that 
unfortunate  year  Bengal  seems  to  have  been  utterly 

drained  of  its  specie The  absence  of  the  means 

of  importation  was  the  more  to  be  deplored,  as  the 
neighbouring  districts  could  easily  have  supplied  grain. 
In  the  southeast  a  fair  harvest  had  been  reaped,  except 
in  circumscribed  spots ;  and  we  are  assured  that,  during 
the  famine,  this  part  of  Bengal  was  enabled  to  export 
without  having  to  complain  of  any  deficiency  in  conse- 
quence  Indeed,  no  matter  how  local  a  famine 

might  be  in  the  last  century,  the  effects  were  equally  dis- 
astrous. Sylhet,  a  district  in  the  northeast  of  Bengal, 
had  reaped  unusually  plentiful  harvests  in  1780  and 
1781,  but  the  next  crop  was  destroyed  by  a  local  inun- 
dation, and,  notwithstanding  the  facilities  for  importa- 
tion afforded  by  water-carriage,  one  third  of  the  people 
died." 

Here  we  have  a  vivid  representation  of  the  economic 
condition  of  a  society  which,  however  highly  civilized 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 


2O3 


in  many  important  respects,  still  retained,  at  the  epoch 
treated  of,  its  aboriginal  type  of  organization.  Here  we 
see  each  community  brought  face  to  face  with  the  im- 
possible task  of  supplying,  unaided,  the  deficiencies  of 
nature.  We  see  one  petty  district  a  prey  to  the  most 
frightful  destitution,  even  while  profuse  plenty  reigns 
in  the  districts  round  about  it.  We  find  an  almost 
complete  absence  of  the  commercial  machinery  which, 
by  enabling  the  starving  region  to  be  fed  out  of  the 
surplus  of  more  favoured  localities,  has  in  the  most 
advanced  countries  rendered  a  great  famine  practically 
impossible. 

Now  this  state  of  things  the  government  of  1770  was 
indeed  powerless  to  remedy.  Legislative  power  and 
wisdom  could  not  anticipate  the  invention  of  railroads ; 
nor  could  it  introduce  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  Bengal  a  system  of  coaches,  canals,  and  caravans ;  nor 
could  it  all  at  once  do  away  with  the  time-honoured 
brigandage,  which  increased  the  cost  of  transport  by 
decreasing  the  security  of  it ;  nor  could  it  in  a  trice  re- 
move the  curse  of  a  heterogeneous  coinage.  None,  save 
those  uninstructed  agitators  who  believe  that  govern- 
ments can  make  water  run  up-hill,  would  be  disposed 
to  find  fault  with  the  authorities  in  Bengal  for  failing  to 
cope  with  these  difficulties.  But  what  we  are  to  blame 
them  for  —  though  it  was  an  error  of  the  judgment  and 
not  of  the  intentions  —  is  their  mischievous  interference 
with  the  natural  course  of  trade,  by  which,  instead  of 
helping  matters,  they  but  added  another  to  the  many 
powerful  causes  which  were  conspiring  to  bring  about 
the  economic  ruin  of  Bengal.  We  refer  to  the  act 
which  in  1770  prohibited  under  penalties  all  specula- 
tion in  rice. 

This  disastrous  piece  cf  legislation  was  due  to  the 


204  THE  FAMIXE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 

universal  prevalence  of  a  prejudice  from  which  so-called 
enlightened  communities  are  not  yet  wholly  free.  It  is 
even  now  customary  to  heap  abuse  upon  those  persons 
who  in  a  season  of  scarcity,  when  prices  are  rapidly 
rising,  buy  up  the  "  necessaries  of  life,"  thereby  still  in- 
creasing for  a  time  the  cost  of  living.  Such  persons  are 
commonly  assailed  with  specious  generalities  to  the 
effect  that  they  are  enemies  of  society.  People  whose 
only  ideas  are  "  moral  ideas  "  regard  them  as  heartless 
sharpers  who  fatten  upon  the  misery  of  their  fellow- 
creatures.  And  it  is  sometimes  hinted  that  such  "  prac- 
tices "  ought  to  be  stopped  by  legislation. 

Now,  so  far  is  this  prejudice,  which  is  a  veiy  old  one, 
from  being  justified  by  facts,  that,  instead  of  being  an 
evil,  speculation  in  breadstuffs  and  other  necessaries  is 
one  of  the  chief  agencies  by  which  in  modern  times  and 
civilized  countries  a  real  famine  is  rendered  almost  im- 
possible. This  natural  monopoly  operates  in  two  ways. 
In  the  first  place,  by  raising  prices,  it  checks  consump- 
tion, putting  every  one  on  shorter  allowance  until  the 
season  of  scarcity  is  over,  and  thus  prevents  the  scarcity 
from  growing  into  famine.  In  the  second  place,  by 
raising  prices,  it  stimulates  importation  from  those  lo- 
calities where  abundance  reigns  and  prices  are  low.  It 
tli  us  in  the  long  run  does  much  to  equalize  the  pressure 
of  a  time  of  dearth  and  diminish  those  extreme  oscilla- 
tions of  prices  which  interfere  with  the  even,  healthy 
course  of  trade.  A  government  which,  in  a  season  of 
high  prices,  does  anything  to  check  such  speculation, 
acts  about  as  sagely  as  the  skipper  of  a  wrecked  vessel 
who  should  refuse  to  put  his  crew  upon  half  rations. 

The  turning-point  of  the  great  Dutch  Kevolution,  so 
far  as  it  concerned  the  provinces  which  now  constitute 
Belgium,  was  the  famous  siege  and  capture  of  Antwerp 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 


2O5 


by  Alexander  Farnese,  Duke  of  Parma.  The  siege  was 
a  long  one,  and  the  resistance  obstinate,  and  the  city 
would  probably  not  have  been  captured  if  famine  had 
not  come  to  the  assistance  of  the  besiegers.  It  is  inter- 
esting, therefore,  to  inquire  what  steps  the  civic  authori- 
ties had  taken  to  prevent  such  a  calamity.  They  knew 
that  the  struggle  before  them  was  likely  to  be  the  life- 
and-death  struggle  of  the  Southern  Netherlands;  they 
knew  that  there  was  risk  of  their  being  surrounded  so 
that  relief  from  without  would  be  impossible ;  they 
knew  that  their  assailant  was  one  of  the  most  astute 
and  unconquerable  of  men,  by  far  the  greatest  general 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  Therefore  they  proceeded  to 
do  just  what  our  Republican  Congress,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, would  probably  have  done,  and  just  what 
the  New  York  Tribune,  if  it  had  existed  in  those  days, 
would  have  advised  them  to  do.  Finding  that  sundry 
speculators  were  accumulating  and  hoarding  up  provis- 
ions in  anticipation  of  a  season  of  high  prices,  they 
hastily  decided,  first  of  all  to  put  a  stop  to  such  "selfish 
iniquity."  In  their  eyes  the  great  thing  to  be  done  was 
to  make  things  cheap.  They  therefore  affixed  a  very 
low  maximum  price  to  everything  which  could  be  eaten, 
and  prescribed  severe  penalties  for  all  who  should  at- 
tempt to  take  more  than  the  sum  by  law  decreed.  If  a 
baker  refused  to  sell  his  bread  for  a  price  which  would 
have  been  adequate  only  in  a  time  of  great  plenty,  his 
shop  was  to  be  broken  open,  and  his  loaves  distributed 
among  the  populace.  The  consequences  of  this  idiotic 
policy  were  twofold. 

In  the  first  place,  the  enforced  lowness  of  prices  pre- 
vented any  breadstuffs  or  other  provisions  from  being 
brought  into  the  city.  It  was  a  long  time  before  Farnese 
succeeded  in  so  blockading  the  Scheldt  as  to  prevent 


206  THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 

ships  laden  with  eatables  from  coming  in  below.  Corn 
and  preserved  meats  might  have  been  hurried  by  thou- 
sands of  tons  into  the  beleaguered  city.  Friendly  Dutch 
vessels,  freighted  with  abundance,  were  waiting  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river.  But  all  to  no  purpose.  No  mer- 
chant \vould  expose  his  valuable  ship,  with  its  cargo,  to 
the  risk  of  being  sunk  by  Farnese's  batteries,  merely  for 
the  sake  of  finding  a  market  no  better  than  a  hundred 
others  which  could  be  entered  without  incurring  danger. 
No  doubt  if  the  merchants  of  Holland  had  followed 
out  the  maxim  Vivre  pour  autrui,  they  would  have 
braved  ruin  and  destruction  rather  than  behold  their 
neighbours  of  Antwerp  enslaved.  No  doubt  if  they 
could  have  risen  to  a  broad  philosophic  view  of  the 
future  interests  of  the  Netherlands,  they  would  have 
seen  that  Antwerp  must  be  saved,  no  matter  if  some 
of  them  were  to  lose  money  by  it.  But  men  do  not 
yet  sacrifice  themselves  for  their  fellows,  nor  do  they 
as  a  rule  look  far  beyond  the  present  moment  and 
its  emergencies.  And  the  business  of  government  is 
to  legislate  for  men  as  they  are,  not  as  it  is  sup- 
posed they  ought  to  be.  If  provisions  had  brought  a 
high  price  in  Antwerp,  they  would  have  been  carried 
thither.  As  it  was,  the  city,  by  its  own  stupidity, 
blockaded  itself  far  more  effectually  than  Farnese  could 
have  done  it. 

In  the  second  place,  the  enforced  lowness  of  prices 
prevented  any  general  retrenchment  on  the  part  of  the 
citizens.  Nobody  felt  it  necessary  to  economize.  Every 
one  bought  as  much  bread,  and  ate  it  as  freely,  as  if  the 
government  by  insuring  its  cheapness  had  insured  its 
abundance.  So  the  city  lived  in  high  spirits  and  in 
gleeful  defiance  of  its  besiegers,  until  all  at  once  provis- 
ions gave  out,  and  the  government  had  to  step  in  again 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 


207 


to  palliate  the  distress  which  it  had  wrought.  It  con- 
stituted itself  quartermaster-general  to  the  community, 
and  doled  out  stinted  rations  alike  to  rich  and  poor, 
with  that  stern  democratic  impartiality  peculiar  to  times 
of  mortal  peril  But  this  served  only,  like  most  arti- 
ficial palliatives,  to  lengthen  out  the  misery.  At  the 
time  of  the  surrender,  not  a  loaf  of  bread  could  be  ob- 
tained for  love  or  money. 

In  this  way  a  bungling  act  of  legislation  helped  to 
decide  for  the  worse  a  campaign  which  involved  the 
territorial  integrity  and  future  welfare  of  what  might 
have  become  a  great  nation  performing  a  valuable  func- 
tion in  the  system  of  European  communities. 

The  striking  character  of  this  instructive  example 
must  be  our  excuse  for  presenting  it  at  such  length. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  famine  in  Bengal  the  authori- 
ties legislated  in  very  much  the  same  spirit  as  the 
burghers  who  had  to  defend  Antwerp  against  Parma. 

"  By  interdicting  what  it  was  pleased  to  term  the 
monopoly  of  grain,  it  prevented  prices  from  rising  at 
once  to  their  natural  rates.  The  Province  had  a  certain 
amount  of  food  in  it,  and  this  food  had  to  last  about 
nine  months.  Private  enterprise  if  left  to  itself  would 
have  stored  up  the  general  supply  at  the  harvest,  with  a 
view  to  realizing  a  larger  profit  at  a  later  period  in  the 
scarcity.  Prices  would  in  consequence  have  immedi- 
ately risen,  compelling  the  population  to  reduce  their 
consumption  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  dearth. 
The  general  stock  would  thus  have  been  husbanded,  and 
the  pressure  equally  spread  over  the  whole  nine  months, 
instead  of  being  concentrated  upon  the  last  six.  The 
price  of  grain,  in  place  of  promptly  rising  to  three  half- 
pence a  pound  as  in  1865  —  66,  continued  at  three  far- 
things during  the  earlier  months  of  the  famine.  During 


2o8  THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 

the  latter  ones  it  advanced  to  twopence,  and  in  certain 
localities  reached  fourpence." 

The  course  taken  by  the  great  famine  of  1866  well 
illustrates  the  above  views.  This  famine,  also,  was 
caused  by  the  total  failure  of  the  December  rice-crop, 
and  it  was  brought  to  a  close  by  an  abundant  harvest  in 
the  succeeding  year. 

"  Even  as  regards  the  maximum  price  reached,  the 
analogy  holds  good,  in  each  case  rice  having  risen  in 
general  to  nearly  twopence,  and  in  particular  places  to 
fourpence,  a  pound ;  and  in  each  the  quoted  rates  being 
for  a  brief  period  in  several  isolated  localities  merely 
nominal,  no  food  existing  in  the  market,  and  money 
altogether  losing  its  interchangeable  value.  In  both 
the  people  endured  silently  to  the  end,  with  a  fortitude 
that  casual  observers  of  a  different  temperament  and 
widely  dissimilar  race  may  easily  mistake  for  apathy, 
but  which  those  who  lived  among  the  sufferers  are  un- 
able to  distinguish  from  qualities  that  generally  pass 
under  a  more  honourable  name.  During  1866,  when 
the  famine  was  severest,  I  superintended  public  instruc- 
tion throughout  the  southwestern  division  of  Lower 
Bengal,  including  Orissa.  The  subordinate  native  offi- 
cers, about  eight  hundred  in  number,  behaved  with  a 
steadiness,  and  when  called  upon,  with  a  self-abnega- 
tion, beyond  praise.  Many  of  them  ruined  their  health. 
The  touching  scenes  of  self-sacrifice  and  humble  hero- 
ism which  I  witnessed  among  the  poor  villagers  on  my 
tours  of  inspection  will  remain  in  my  memory  till  my 
latest  day." 

But  to  meet  the  famine  of  1866  Bengal  was  equipped 
with  railroads  and  canals,  and  better  than  all,  with  an 
intelligent  government.  Far  from  trying  to  check  specu- 
lation, as  in  1770,  the  government  did  all  in  its  power 


THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 


2O9 


to  stimulate  it.  In  the  earlier  famine  one  could  hardly 
engage  in  the  grain  trade  without  becoming  amenable 
to  the  law.  "  In  1866  respectable  men  in  vast  numbers 
went  into  the  trade;  for  government,  by  publishing 
weekly  returns  of  the  rates  in  every  district,  rendered 
the  traffic  both  easy  and  safe.  Every  one  knew  where 
to  buy  grain  cheapest,  and  where  to  sell  it  dearest,  and 
food  was  accordingly  brought  from  the  districts  that 
could  best  spare  it,  and  carried  to  those  which  most 
urgently  needed  it.  Not  only  were  prices  equalized  so 
far  as  possible  throughout  the  stricken  parts,  but  the 
publicity  given  to  the  high  rates  in  Lower  Bengal  in- 
duced large  shipments  from  the  upper  provinces,  and 
the  chief  seat  of  the  trade  became  unable  to  afford 
accommodation  for  landing  the  vast  stores  of  grain 
brought  down  the  river.  Eice  poured  into  the  affected 
districts  from  all  parts,  —  railways,  canals,  and  roads 
vigorously  doing  their  duty." 

The  result  of  this  wise  policy  w7as  that  scarcity  was 
heightened  into  famine  only  in  one  remote  corner  of 
Bengal.  Orissa  was  commercially  isolated  in  1866,  as 
the  whole  country  had  been  in  1770.  "As  far  back  as 
the  records  extend,  Orissa  has  produced  more  grain  than 
it  can  use.  It  is  an  exporting,  not  an  importing  prov- 
ince, sending  away  its  surplus  grain  by  sea,  and  neither 
requiring  nor  seeking  any  communication  with  Lower 
Bengal  by  land."  Long  after  the  rest  of  the  province 
had  begun  to  prepare  for  a  year  of  famine,  Orissa  kept 
on  exporting.  In  March,  when  the  alarm  was  first 
raised,  the  southwest  monsoon  had  set  in,  rendering  the 
harbours  inaccessible.  Thus  the  district  was  isolated. 
It  was  no  longer  possible  to  apply  the  wholesome  policy 
which  was  operating  throughout  the  rest  of  the  country. 
The  doomed  population  of  Orissa,  like  passengers  in  a 


2io  THE  FAMINE  OF  1770  IN  BENGAL. 

ship  without  provisions,  were  called  upon  to  suffer  the 
extremities  of  famine ;  and  in  the  course  of  the  spring 
and  summer  of  1866,  some  seven  hundred  thousand 
people  perished. 

January,  1869. 


X. 

SPAIN  AND  THE  NETHERLANDS.* 

Tandem  jit  surculus  arbor:  the  twig  which  Mr. 
Motley  in  his  earlier  volumes  has  described  as  slowly 
putting  forth  its  leaves  and  rootlets,  while  painfully 
struggling  for  existence  in  a  hostile  soil,  has  at  last 
grown  into  a  mighty  tree  of  liberty,  drawing  sustenance 
from  all  lands,  and  protecting  all  civilized  peoples  with 
its  pleasant  shade.  We  congratulate  Mr.  Motley  upon 
the  successful  completion  of  the  second  portion  of  his 
great  work ;  and  we  think  that  the  Netherlander  of  our 
time  have  reason  to  be  grateful  to  the  writer  who  has 
so  faithfully  and  eloquently  told  the  story  of  their  coun- 
try's fearful  struggle  against  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
tyranny,  and  its  manifold  contributions  to  the  advance- 
ment of  European  civilization. 

Mr.  Motley  has  been  fortunate  in  his  selection  of  a 
subject  upon  which  to  write.  Probably  no  century  of 
modern  times  lends  itself  to  the  purposes  of  the  descrip- 
tive historian  so  well  as  the  sixteenth.  •  While  on  the 
one  hand  the  problems  which  it  presents  are  sufficiently 
near  for  us  to  understand  them  without  too  great  an 
effort  of  the  imagination,  on  the  other  hand  they  are 
sufficiently  remote  for  us  to  study  them  without  pas- 

*  History  of  the  United  Netherlands  :  from  the  Death  of  William 
the  Silent  to  the  Twelve  Years'  Truce,  1609.  By  John  Lothrop  Mot- 
ley, D.  C.  L.  In  four  volumes.  Vols.  III.  and  IV.  New  York. 
1868. 


212  SPAIN  AND    THE  NETHERLANDS. 

sionate  and  warping  prejudice.  The  contest  between 
Catholicism  and  the  reformed  religion  —  between  ec- 
clesiastical autocracy  and  the  right  of  private  investiga- 
tion —  has  become  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  constitutes 
a  closed  chapter  in  human  history.  The  epoch  which 
begins  where  Mr.  Motley's  history  is  designed  to  close  — 
at  the  peace  of  Westphalia  —  is  far  more  complicated. 
Since  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  a  double 
movement  has  been  going  on  in  religion  and  philosophy, 
society  and  politics,  —  a  movement  of  destruction  typi- 
fied by  Voltaire  and  Eousseau,  and  a  constructive  move- 
ment represented  by  Diderot  and  Lessing.  We  are 
still  living  in  the  midst  of  this  great  epoch :  the  ques- 
tions which  it  presents  are  liable  to  disturb  our  preju- 
dices as  well  as  to  stimulate  our  reason ;  the  results  to 
which  it  must  sooner  or  later  attain  can  now  be  only 
partially  foreseen ;  and  even  its  present  tendencies  are 
generally  misunderstood,  and  in  many  quarters  wholly 
ignored.  With  the  sixteenth  century,  as  we  have  said, 
the  case  is  far  different.  The  historical  problem  is  far 
less  complex.  The  issues  at  stake  are  comparatively 
simple,  and  the  historian  has  before  him  a  straightfor- 
ward story. 

From  the  dramatic,  or  rather  from  the  epic,  point  of 
view,  the  sixteenth  century  is  pre-eminent.  The  essen- 
tially transitional  character  of  modern  history  since  the 
breaking  up  of  the  papal  and  feudal  systems  is  at  no 
period  more  distinctly  marked.  In  traversing  the  six- 
teenth century  we  realize  that  we  have  fairly  got  out  of 
one  state  of  things  and  into  another.  At  the  outset, 
events  like  the  challenge  of  Barletta  may  make  us  doubt 
whether  we  have  yet  quite  left  behind  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  belief  in  the  central  position  of  the  earth  is  still 
universal,  and  the  belief  in  its  rotundity  not  yet,  until 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 

the  voyage  of  Magellan,  generally  accepted.  We  find 
England  —  owing  partly  to  the  introduction  of  gun- 
powder and  the  consequent  disuse  of  archery,  partly  to 
the  results  of  the  recent  integration  of  France  under 
Louis  XI.  —  fallen  back  from  the  high  relative  posi- 
tion which  it  had  occupied  under  the  rule  of  the 
Plantagenets ;  and  its  policy  still  directed  in  accord- 
ance with  reminiscences  of  Agincourt,  and  Barnet, 
and  Burgundian  alliances.  We  find  France  just  be- 
ginning her  ill-fated  career  of  intervention  in  the  af- 
fairs of  Italy ;  and  Spain,  with  her  Moors  finally  van- 
quished and  a  new  world  beyond  the  ocean  just  added 
to  her  domain,  rapidly  developing  into  the  greatest  em- 
pire which  had  been  seen  since  the  days  of  the  first 
Cassars.  But  at  the  close  of  the  century  we  find  feudal 
life  in  castles  changed  into  modern  life  in  towns ;  chi- 
valric  defiances  exchanged  for  over-subtle  diplomacy ; 
Maurices  instead  of  Bayards ;  a  Henry  IV.  instead  of  a 
Gaston  de  Foix.  We  find  the  old  theory  of  man's  cen- 
tral position  in  the  universe  —  the  foundation  of  the 
doctrine  of  final  causes  and  of  the  whole  theological 
method  of  interpreting  nature  —  finally  overthrown  by 
Copernicus.  Instead  of  the  circurnnavigability  of  the 
earth,  the  discovery  of  a  Northwest  passage  —  as  in- 
stanced by  the  heroic  voyage  of  Barendz,  so  nobly 
described  by  Mr.  Motley  —  is  now  the  chief  geographi- 
cal problem.  East  India  Companies,  in  place  of  petty 
guilds  of  weavers  and  bakers,  bear  witness  to  the  vast 
commercial  progress.  We  find  England,  fresh  from  her 
stupendous  victory  over  the  whole  power  of  Spain,  again 
in  the  front  rank  of  nations;  France,  under  the  most 
astute  of  modern  sovereigns,  taking  her  place  for  a  time 
as  the  political  leader  of  the  civilized  world ;  Spain, 
with  her  evil  schemes  baffled  in  every. quarter,  sinking 


SPAIN  AND    THE  NETHERLANDS. 

into  that  terrible  death-like  lethargy,  from  which  she 
has  hardly  yet  awakened,  and  which  must  needs  call 
forth  our  pity,  though  it  is  but  the  deserved  retribution 
for  her  past  behaviour.  While  the  little  realm  of  the 
Netherlands,  filched  and  cozened  from  the  unfortunate 
Jacqueline  by  the  "  good "  Duke  of  Burgundy,  carried 
over  to  Austria  as  the  marriage-portion  of  Lady  Mary, 
sent  down  to  Spain  as  the  personal  inheritance  of  the 
"prudent"  Philip,  and  by  him  intolerably  tormented 
with  an  Inquisition,  a  Blood-Council,  and  a  Duke  of 
Alva,  has  after  a  forty  years'  war  of  independence  taken 
its  position  for  a  time  as  the  greatest  of  commercial 
nations,  with  the  most  formidable  navy  and  one  of  the 
best  disciplined  armies  yet  seen  upon  the  earth. 

But  the  central  phenomenon  of  the  sixteenth  century 
is  the  culmination  of  the  Protestant  movement  in  its 
decisive  proclamation  by  Luther.  For  nearly  three 
hundred  years  already  the  power  of  the  Church  had 
been  declining,  and  its  function  as  a  civilizing  agency 
had  been  growing  more  and  more  obsolete.  The  first 
great  blow  at  its  supremacy  had  been  directed  with 
partial  success  in  the  thirteenth  century  by  the  Emperor 
Frederick  II.  Coincident  with  this  attack  from  with- 
out, we  find  a  reformation  begun  within,  as  exemplified 
in  the  Dominican  and  Franciscan  movements.  The 
second  great  blow  was  aimed  by  Philip  IV.  of  France, 
and  this  time  it  struck  with  terrible  force.  The  re- 
moval of  the  Papacy  to  Avignon,  in  1305,  was  the 
virtual  though  unrecognized  abdication  of  its  beneficent 
supremacy.  Bereft  of  its  dignity  and  independence, 
from  that  time  forth  it  ceased  to  be  the  defender  of 
national  unity  against  baronial  anarchy,  of  popular 
rights  against  monarchical  usurpation,  and  became  a 
formidable  instrument  of  despotism  and  oppression. 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 


215 


Through  the  vicissitudes  of  the  great  schism  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  and  the  refractory  councils  in  the 
fifteenth,  its  position  became  rapidly  more  and  more 
retrograde  and  demoralized.  And  when,  in  1530,  it 
joined  its  forces  with  those  of  Charles  V.,  in  crushing 
the  liberties  of  the  worthiest  of  mediaeval  republics,  it 
became  evident  that  the  cause  of  freedom  and  progress 
must  henceforth  be  intrusted  to  some  more  faithful 
champion.  The  revolt  of  Northern  Europe,  led  by 
Luther  and  Henry  VIII.  was  but  the  articulate  an- 
nouncement of  this  altered  state  of  affairs.  So  long  as 
the  Roman  Church  had  been  felt  to  be  the  enemy  of 
tyrannical  monarchs  and  the  steadfast  friend  of  the 
people,  its  encroachments,  as  represented  by  men  like 
Dunstan  and  Becket,  were  regarded  with  popular  favour. 
The  strength  of  the  Church  lay  ever  in  its  democratic 
instincts;  and  when  these  were  found  to  have  aban- 
doned it,  the  indignant  protest  of  Luther  sufficed  to 
tear  away  half  of  Europe  from  its  allegiance. 

By  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  we  find  the  ter- 
ritorial struggle  between  the  Church  and  the  reformed 
religion  substantially  decided.  Protestantism  and  Ca- 
tholicism occupied  then  the  same  respective  areas  which 
they  now  occupy.  Since  1600  there  has  been  no  in- 
stance of  a  nation  passing  from  one  form  of  worship  to 
the  other ;  and  in  all  probability  there  never  will  be. 
Since  the  wholesale  dissolution  of  religious  beliefs 
wrought  in  the  last  century,  the  whole  issue  between 
liomanism  and  Protestantism,  regarded  as  dogmatic  sys- 
tems, is  practically  dead.  M.  Kenan  is  giving  expres- 
sion to  an  almost  self-evident  truth,  when  he  says  that 
religious  development  is  no  longer  to  proceed  by  way 
of  sectarian  proselytism,  but  by  way  of  harmonious 
internal  development.  The  contest  is  no  longer  be- 


2i6  SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 

tween  one  theology  and  another,  but  it  is  between 
the  theological  and  the  scientific  methods  of  interpret- 
ing natural  phenomena.  The  sixteenth  century  has 
to  us  therefore  the  interest  belonging  to  a  rounded  and 
completed  tale.  It  contains  within  itself  substantially 
the  entire  history  of  the  final  stage  of  the  theological 
reformation. 

This  great  period  falls  naturally  into  two  divisions, 
the  first  corresponding  very  nearly  with  the  reigns  of 
Charles  V.  and  Henry  VI II.,  and  the  second  with  the 
age  of  Philip  II.  and  Elizabeth.  The  first  of  these 
periods  was  filled  with  the  skirmishes  which  were  to 
open  the  great  battle  of  the  Eeformation.  At  first  the 
strength  and  extent  of  the  new  revolution  were  not 
altogether  apparent.  While  the  Inquisition  was  vig- 
orously crushing  out  the  first  symptoms  of  disaffection 
in  Spain,  it  at  one  time  seemed  as  if  the  Eeformers 
were  about  to  gain  the  whole  of  the  Empire,  besides 
acquiring  an  excellent  foothold  in  France.  Again, 
while  England  was  wavering  between  the  old  and  the 
new  faith,  the  last  hopes  of  the  Reform  in  Germany 
seemed  likely  to  be  destroyed  by  the  military  genius 
of  Charles.  But  in  Maurice,  the  red-bearded  hero  of 
Saxony,  Charles  found  more  than  his  match.  The 
picture  of  the  rapid  and  desperate  march  of  Maurice 
upon  Innspruck,  and  of  the  great  Emperor  flying  for  his 
life  at  the  very  hour  of  his  imagined  triumph,  has  still 
for  us  an  intenser  interest  than  almost  any  other  scene 
of  that  age;  for  it  was  the  event  which  proved  that 
Protestantism  was  not  a  mere  local  insurrection  which 
a  monarch  like  Charles  could  easily  put  down,  but  a 
gigantic  revolution  against  which  all  the  powers  in  the 
world  might  well  strive  in  vain. 

With  the  abdication  of  Charles  in   1556  the   new 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS.  2I/ 

period  may  be  said  to  begin,  and  it  is  here  that  Mr. 
Motley's  history  commences.  Events  crowded  thick 
and  fast.  In  1556  Philip  II.,  a  prince  bred  and  edu- 
cated for  the  distinct  purpose  of  suppressing  heresy, 
succeeded  to  the  rule  of  the  most  powerful  empire 
which  had  been  seen  since  the  days  of  the  Antonines. 
In  the  previous  year  a  new  era  had  begun  at  the  court 
of  Eome.  The  old  race  of  pagan  pontiffs,  the  Borgias, 
the  Farneses,  and  the  Medicis,  had  come  to  an  end, 
and  the  papal  throne  was  occupied  by  the  puritanical 
Caraffa,  as  violent  a  fanatic  as  Robespierre,  and  a  foe 
of  freedom  as  uncompromising  as  Philip  II.  himself. 
Under  his  auspices  took  place  the  great  reform  in  the 
Church  signalized  by  the  rise  of  the  Jesuits,  as  the 
reform  in  the  thirteenth  century  had  been  attended 
by  the  rise  of  the  Cordeliers  and  Dominicans.  His 
name  should  not  be  forgotten,  for  it  is  mainly  owing 
to  the  policy  inaugurated  by  him  that  Catholicism  was 
enabled  to  hold  its  ground  as  well  as  it  did.  In  1557, 
the  next  year,  the  strength  of  France  was  broken  at 
St.  Quentin,  and  Spain  was  left  with  her  hands  free 
to  deal  with  the  Protestant  powers.  In  1558,  by  the 
accession  of  Elizabeth,  England  became  committed  to 
the  cause  of  Reform.  In  1559  the  stormy  administra- 
tion of  Margaret  began  in  the  Netherlands.  In  1560 
the  Scotch  nobles  achieved  the  destruction  of  Catholi- 
cism in  North  Britain.  By  this  time  every  nation, 
except  France,  had  taken  sides  in  the  conflict  which 
was  to  last,  with  hardly  any  cessation,  during  two 
generations. 

Mr.    Motley,   therefore,   in   describing   the   rise   and 

progress  of  the  united  republic  of  the  Netherlands,  is 

writing  not  Dutch  but  European  history.     On  his  pages 

France,  Spain,  and   England  make  almost  as  large  a 

10 


2i8  SPAIN  AND    THE  NETHERLANDS. 

figure  as  Holland  itself.  He  is  writing  the  history  of 
the  Eeformation  during  its  concluding  epoch,  and  he 
chooses  the  Netherlands  as  his  main  subject,  because 
during  that  period  the  Netherlands  were  the  centre  of 
the  movement.  They  constituted  the  great  bulwark  of 
freedom,  and  upon  the  success  or  failure  of  their  cause 
the  future  prospect  of  Europe  and  of  mankind  de- 
pended. Spain  and  the  Netherlands,  Philip  II.  and 
William  the  Silent,  were  the  two  leading  antagonists 
and  were  felt  to  be  such  by  the  other  nations  and  rulers 
that  came  to  mingle  in  the  strife.  It  is  therefore  a 
stupid  criticism  which  we  have  seen  made  upon  Mr. 
Motley,  that,  having  brought  his  narrative  down  to  the 
truce  of  1609,  he  ought,  instead  of  describing  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  to  keep  on  with  Dutch  history,  and  pour- 
tray  the  wars  against  Cromwell  and  Charles  II.,  and 
the  struggle  of  the  second  William  of  Orange  against 
Louis  XIV.  By  so  doing  he  would  only  violate  the 
unity  of  his  narrative.  The  wars  of  the  Dutch  against 
England  and  France  belong  to  an  entirely  different 
epoch  in  European  history,  —  a  modern  epoch,  in  which 
political  and  commercial  interests  were  of  prime  impor- 
tance, and  theological  interests  distinctly  subsidiary. 
The  natural  terminus  of  Mr.  Motley's  work  is  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia.  After  bringing  down  his  history 
to  the  time  when  the  independence  of  the  Netherlands 
was  virtually  acknowledged,  after  describing  the  princi- 
pal stages  of  the  struggle  against  Catholicism  and  uni- 
versal monarchy,  as  carried  on  in  the  first  generation 
by  Elizabeth  and  William,  and  in  the  second  by  Mau- 
rice and  Henry,  he  will  naturally  go  on  to  treat  of  the 
epilogue  as  conducted  by  Richelieu  and  Gustavus,  end- 
ing in  the  final  cessation  of  religious  wars  throughout 
Europe. 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS.  2IQ 

The  conflict  in  the  Netherlands  was  indeed  far  more 
than  a  mere  religious  struggle.     In  its  course  was  dis- 
tinctly  brought  into   prominence   the   fact   which   we 
have  above  signalized,  that  since  the  Roman  Church 
had  abandoned  the  liberties  of  the   people  they  had 
found  a  new  defender  in  the  reformed  religion.     The 
Dutch  rebellion  is  peculiarly  interesting,  because  it  was 
a  revolt  not  merely  against  the  Inquisition,  but  also 
against   the   temporal  sovereignty  of  Philip.     Besides 
changing  their  religion,  the  sturdy  Netherlander  saw 
fit  to  throw  off  the  sway  of  their  legitimate  ruler,  and 
to  proclaim  the  thrice  heretical  doctrine  of  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  people.     In  this  one  respect  their  views 
were  decidedly  more  modern  than  those  of  Elizabeth 
and  Henry  IV.    These  great  monarchs  apparently  neither 
understood  nor  relished  the  republican  theories  of  the 
Hollanders ;  though  it  is  hardly  necessary  for  Mr.  Mot- 
ley to  sneer  at  them  quite  so  often  because  they  were 
not  to  an  impossible  degree  in  advance  of  their  age. 
The   proclamation    of  a   republic   in   the    Netherlands 
marked  of  itself  the  beginning  of  a  new  era,  —  an  era 
when  flourishing  communities  of  men  were  no  longer 
to  be  bought  and  sold,  transferred  and  bequeathed  like 
real  estate  and  chattels,  but  were  to  have  and  maintain 
the  right  of  choosing  with  whom   and  under  whom 
they  should   transact   their  affairs.     The.  interminable 
negotiations  for  a  truce,  which  fill  nearly  one  third  of  Mr. 
Motley's  concluding  volume,  exhibit  with  striking  dis- 
tinctness the  difference  between  the  old  and  new  points 
of  view.     Here  again  we  think  Mr.  Motley  errs  slightly, 
in  calling  too  much  attention  to  the  prevaricating  di- 
plomacy of  the   Spanish  court,  and   too   little   to   its 
manifest  inability  to  comprehend  the  demands  of  the 
Netherlanders.       How    should    statesmen    brought    up 


220  SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 

under  Philip  II.  and  kept  under  the  eye  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion be  expected  to  understand  a  claim  for  liberty 
originating  in  the  rights  of  the  common  people  and  not 
in  the  gracious  benevolence  or  intelligent  policy  of  the 
King  ?  The  very  idea  must  have  been  practically  in- 
conceivable by  them.  Accordingly,  they  strove  by 
every  available  device  of  chicanery  to  wheedle  the 
Netherlander  into  accepting  their  independence  as  a 
gift  from  the  King  of  Spain.  But  to  such  a  piece  of 
self-stultification  the  clear-sighted  Dutchmen  could  by 
no  persuasion  be  brought  to  consent.  Their  inde- 
pendence, they  argued,  was  not  the  King's  to  give. 
They  had  won  it  from  him  and  his  father,  in  a  war  of 
forty  years,  during  which  they  had  suffered  atrocious 
miseries,  and  all  that  the  King  of  Spain  could  do  was 
to  acknowledge  it  as  their  right,  and  cease  to  molest 
them  in  future.  Over  this  point,  so  simple  to  us  but 
knotty  enough  in  those  days,  the  commissioners  wrangled 
for  nearly  two  years.  And  when  the  Spanish  govern- 
ment, unable  to  carry  on  the  war  any  longer  without 
risk  of  utter  bankruptcy,  and  daily  crippled  in  its 
resources  by  the  attacks  of  the  Dutch  navy,  grudgingly 
agreed  to  a  truce  upon  the  Netherlanders'  terms,  it  vir- 
tually acknowledged  its  own  defeat  and  the  downfall 
of  the  principles  for  which  it  had  so  obstinately  fought. 
By  the  truce  of  1609  the  republican  principle  was 
admitted  by  the  most  despotic  of  governments. 

Here  was  the  first  great  triumph  of  republicanism 
over  monarchy;  and  it  was  not  long  in  bearing  fruits. 
For  the  Dutch  revolution,  the  settlement  of  America 
by  English  Puritans,  the  great  rebellion  of  the  Com- 
mons, the  Eevolution  of  1688,  the  revolt  of  the  Ameri- 
can Colonies,  and  the  general  overthrow  of  feudalism 
in  1789,  are  but  successive  acts  in  the  same  drama 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS.  22I 

William  the  Silent  was  the  worthy  forerunner  of  Crom- 
well and  Washington ;  and  but  for  the  victory  which 
he  won,  during  his  life  and  after  his  untimely  death, 
the  subsequent  triumphs  of  civil  liberty  might  have 
been  long  postponed. 

Over  the  sublime  figure  of  William  —  scevis  tran- 
quillus  in  undis  —  we  should  be  giad  to  dwell,  but  we 
are  not  reviewing  the  "Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic," 
and  in  Mr.  Motley's  present  volumes  the  hero  of  tolera- 
tion appears  no  longer.  His  antagonist,  however,  —  the 
Philip  whom  God  for  some  inscrutable  purpose  per- 
mitted to  afflict  Europe  during  a  reign  of  forty-two 
years,  —  accompanies  us  nearly  to  the  end  of  the  present 
work,  dying  just  in  time  for  the  historian  to  sum  up  the 
case  against  him,  and  pronounce  final  judgment.  For 
the  memory  of  Philip  IL  Mr.  Motley  cherishes  no  weak 
pity.  He  rarely  alludes  to  him  without  commenting 
upon  his  total  depravity,  and  he  dismisses  him  with  the 
remark  that  "  if  there  are  vices  —  as  possibly  there  are 
—  from  which  he  was  exempt,  it  is  because  it  is  not 
permitted  to  human  nature  to  attain  perfection  in  evil." 
The  verdict  is  none  the  less  just  because  of  its  concise- 
ness. If  there  ever  was  a  strife  between  Hercules  and 
Cacus,  between  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  between  the 
Power  of  Light  and  the  Power  of  Darkness,  it  was 
certainly  the  strife  between  the  Prince  of  Orange  and 
the  Spanish  Monarch.  They  are  contrasted  like  the 
light  and  shade  in  one  of  Dora's  pictures.  And  yet  it 
is  perhaps  unnecessary  for  Mr.  Motley  to  say  that  if 
Philip  had  been  alive  when  Spinola  won  for  him  the 
great  victory  of  Ostend,  "  he  would  have  felt  it  his  duty 
to  make  immediate  arrangements  for  poisoning  him." 
Doubtless  the  imputation  is  sufficiently  justified  by 
what  we  know  of  Philip ;  but  it  is  uncalled  for.  We 


222  SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 

do  not  care  to  hear  about  what  the  despot  might  have 
done.  We  know  what  he  did  do,  and  the  record  is  suf- 
ficiently damning.  There  is  no  harm  in  our  giving  the 
Devil  his  due,  or  as  Llorente  wittily  says,  "  II  ue  faut 
pas  calomnier  meme  1'Inquisition." 

Philip  inherited  all  his  father's  bad  qualities,  without 
any  of  his  good  ones ;  and  so  it  is  much  easier  to  judge 
him  than  his  father.  Charles,  indeed,  is  one  of  those 
characters  whom  one  hardly  knows  whether  to  love  or 
hate,  to  admire  or  despise.  He  had  much  bad  blood  in 
him.  Charles  the  Bold  and  Ferdinand  of  Aragon  were 
not  grandparents  to  be  proud  of.  Yet  with  all  this  he 
inherited  from  his  grandmother  Isabella  much  that  one 
can  like,  and  his  face,  as  preserved  by  Titian,  in  spite 
of  its  frowning  brow  and  thick  Burgundian  lip,  is  rather 
prepossessing,  while  the  face  of  Philip  is  simply  odious. 
In  intellect  he  must  probably  be  called  great,  though 
his  policy  often  betrayed  the  pettiness  of  selfishness. 
If,  in  comparison  with  the  mediaeval  emperor  whose 
fame  he  envied,  he  may  justly  be  called  Charles  the 
Little,  he  may  still,  when  compared  to  a  more  modern 
emulator  of  Charlemagne,  —  the  first  of  the  Bonapartes, 
—  be  considered  great  and  enlightened.  If  he  could  lie 
and  cheat  more  consummately  than  any  contemporary 
monarch,  not  excepting  his  rival,  Francis,  he  could  still 
be  grandly  magnanimous,  while  the  generosity  of  Fran- 
cis flowed  only  from  the  shallow  surface  of  a  maudlin 
good-nature.  He  spoke  many  languages  and  had  the 
tastes  of  a  scholar,  while  his  son  had  only  the  inclina- 
tions of  an  unfeeling  pedagogue.  He  had  an  inkling 
of  urbanity,  and  could  in  a  measure  become  all  things 
to  all  men,  while  Philip  could  never  show  himself  ex- 
cept as  a  gloomy,  impracticable  bigot.  It  is  for  some 
such  reasons  as  these,  I  suppose,  that  Mr.  Buckle  —  no 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 


223 


friend  to  despots — speaks  well  of  Charles,  and  that  Mr. 
Froude  is  moved  to  tell  the  following  anecdote :  While 
standing  by  the  grave  of  Luther,  and  musing  over  the 
strange  career  of  the  giant  monk  whose  teachings  had 
gone  so  far  to  wreck  his  most  cherished  schemes  and 
render  his  life  a  failure,  some  fanatical  bystander  ad- 
vised the  Emperor  to  have  the  body  taken  up  and 
burned  in  the  market-place.  "  There  was  nothing,"  says 
Mr.  Froude,  "  unusual  in  the  proposal ;  it  was  the  com- 
mon practice  of  the  Catholic  Church  with  the  remains 
of  heretics,  who  were  held  unworthy  to  be  left  in  re- 
pose in  hallowed  ground.  There  was  scarcely,  perhaps, 
another  Catholic  prince  who  would  have  hesitated  to 
comply.  But  Charles  was  one  of  nature's  gentlemen. 
He  answered,  '  I  war  not  with  the  dead.'  "  Mr.  Motley 
takes  a  less  charitable  view  of  the  great  Emperor.  His 
generous  indignation  against  all  persecutors  makes  him 
severe ;  and  in  one  of  his  earlier  volumes,  while  speak- 
ing of  the  famous  edicts  for  the  suppression  of  heresy 
in  the  Netherlands,  he  somewhere  uses  the  word  "  mur- 
der." Without  attempting  to  palliate  the  crime  of  per- 
secution, I  doubt  if  it  is  quite  fair  to  Charles  to  call 
him  a  murderer.  We  must  not  forget  that  persecution, 
now  rightly  deemed  an  atrocious  crime,  was  once  really 
considered  by  some  people  a  sacred  duty;  that  it  was  none 
other  than  the  compassionate  Isabella  who  established 
the  Spanish  Inquisition ;  and  that  the  "  bloody "  Mary 
Tudor  was  a  woman  who  would  not  wilfully  have  done 
wrong.  With  the  progress  of  civilization  the  time 
will  doubtless  come  when  warfare,  having  ceased  to  be 
necessary,  will  be  thought  highly  criminal ;  yet  it  will 
not  then  be  fair  to  hold  Marlborough  or  Wellington 
accountable  for  the  lives  lost  in  their  great  battles.  We 
still  live  in  an  age  wrhen  war  is,  to  the  imagination  of 


224 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 


some  persons,  surrounded  with  false  glories;  and  the 
greatest  of  modern  generals  *  has  still  many  undiscrimi- 
nating  admirers.  Yet  the  day  is  no  less  certainly  at 
hand  when  the  edicts  of  Charles  V.  will  be  deemed  a 
more  pardonable  offence  against  humanity  than  the 
wanton  march  to  Moscow. 

Philip  II.  was  different  from  his  father  in  capacity  as 
a  drudging  clerk,  like  Boutwell,  is  different  from  a  bril- 
liant financier  like  Gladstone.  In  organization  he  dif- 
fered from  him  as  a  boor  differs  from  a  gentleman.  He 
seemed  made  of  a  coarser  clay.  The  difference  between 
them  is  well  indicated  by  their  tastes  at  the  table. 
Both  were  terrible  gluttons,  a  fact  which  puritanic  criti- 
cism might  set  down  as  equally  to  the  discredit  of  each 
of  them.  But  even  in  intemperance  there  are  degrees 
of  refinement,  and  the  impartial  critic  of  life  and  man- 
ners will  no  doubt  say  that  if  one  must  get  drunk,  let 
it  be  on  Chateau  Margaux  rather  than  on  commissary 
whiskey.  Pickled  partridges,  plump  capons,  syrups  of 
fruits,  delicate  pastry,  and  rare  fish  went  to  make  up 
the  diet  of  Charles  in  his  last  days  at  Yuste.  But  the 
beastly  Philip  would  make  himself  sick  with  a  surfeit 
of  underdone  pork. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  father,  we  can  hardly 
go  far  wrong  in  ascribing  the  instincts  of  a  murderer  to 
the  son.  He  not  only  burned  heretics,  but  he  burned 
them  with  an  air  of  enjoyment  and  self-complacency. 
His  nuptials  with  Elizabeth  of  France  were  celebrated 
by  a  vast  auto-da-f£.  He  studied  murder  as  a  fine  art, 
and  was  as  skilful  in  private  assassinations  as  Cellini 
was  in  engraving  on  gems.  The  secret  execution  of 
Montigny,  never  brought  to  light  until  the  present  cen- 

*  This  was  written  before  the  deeds  of  Moltke  had  eclipsed  those  of 
Napoleon. 


SPAIN  AND    THE  NETHERLANDS. 


22$ 


tury,  was  a  veritable  chef  d'aeuvre  of  this  sort.  The  cases 
of  Escobedo  and  Antonio  Perez  may  also  be  cited  in  point. 
Dark  suspicions  hung  around  the  premature  death  of 
Don  John  of  Austria,  his  too  brilliant  and  popular  half- 
brother.  He  planned  the  murder  of  William  the  Silent, 
and  rewarded  the  assassin  with  an  annuity  furnished  by 
the  revenues  of  the  victim's  confiscated  estates.  He 
kept  a  staff  of  ruffians  constantly  in  service  for  the  pur- 
pose of  taking  off  Elizabeth,  Henry  IV.,  Prince  Maurice, 
Olden-Barneveldt,  and  St.  Aldegonde.  He  instructed 
Alva  to  execute  sentence  of  death  upon  the  whole  pop- 
ulation of  the  Netherlands.  He  is  partly  responsible 
for  the  martyrdoms  of  Eidley  and  Latimer,  and  the  ju- 
dicial murder  of  Cranmer.  He  first  conceived  the  idea 
of  the  wholesale  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  many  years 
before  Catharine  de'  Medici  carried  it  into  operation. 
His  ingratitude  was  as  dangerous  as  his  revengeful  fa- 
naticism. Those  who  had  best  served  his  interests  were 
the  least  likely  to  escape  the  consequences  of  his  jeal- 
ousy. He  destroyed  Egmont,  who  had  won  for  him  the 
splendid  victories  of  St.  Quentin  and  Gravelines ;  and 
"  with  minute  and  artistic  treachery "  he  plotted  "  the 
disgrace  and  ruin  "  of  Farnese,  "  the  man  who  was  his 
near  blood-relation,  and  who  had  served  him  most  faith- 
fully from  earliest  youth."  Contemporary  opinion  even 
held  him  accountable  for  the  obscure  deaths  of  his  wife 
Elizabeth  and  his  son  Carlos ;  but  M.  Gachard  has  shown 
that  this  suspicion  is  unfounded.  Philip  appears  per- 
haps to  better  advantage  in  his  domestic  than  in  his 
political  relations.  Yet  he  was  addicted  to  vulgar  and 
miscellaneous  incontinence  ;  toward  the  close  of  his  life 
he  seriously  contemplated  marrying  his  own  daughter 
Isabella ;  and  he  ended  by  taking  for  his  fourth  wife  his 
niece,  Anne  of  Austria,  who  became  the  mother  of  his 
10*  o 


226  SPAIN  AND    THE  NETHERLANDS. 

half-idiotic  son  and  successor.  We  know  of  no  royal 
family,  unless  it  may  be  the  Claudians  of  Rome,  in 
which  the  transmission  of  moral  and  intellectual  quali- 
ties is  more  thoroughly  illustrated  than  in  this  Burgun- 
dian  race  which  for  two  centuries  held  the  sceptre  of 
Spain.  The  son  Philip  and  the  grandmother  Isabella 
are  both  needful  in  order  to  comprehend  the  strange 
mixture  of  good  and  evil  in  Charles.  But  the  descend- 
ants of  Philip  —  two  generations  of  idiocy,  and  a  third 
of  utter  impotence  —  are  a  sufficient  commentary  upon 
the  organization  and  character  of  their  progenitor. 

Such  was  the  man  who  for  two  generations  had  been 
considered  the  bulwark  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  who, 
having  been  at  the  bottom  of  nearly  all  the  villariy  that 
had  been  wrought  in  Europe  for  half  a  century,  was  yet 
able  to  declare  upon  his  death-bed  that  "  in  all  his  life 
he  had  never  consciously  done  wrong  to  any  one."  At 
a  ripe  old  age  he  died  of  a  fearful  disease.  Under  the 
influence  of  a  typhus  fever,  supervening  upon  gout,  he 
had  begun  to  decompose  while  yet  alive.  "  His  suffer- 
ings," says  Mr.  Motley,  "were  horrible,  but  no  saint 
could  have  manifested  in  them  more  gentle  resignation 
or  angelic  patience.  He  moralized  on  the  condition  to 
which  the  greatest  princes  might  thus  be  brought  at  last 
by  the  hand  of  God,  and  bade  the  Prince  observe  well 
his  father's  present  condition,  in  order  that  when  he  too 
should  be  laid  thus  low,  he  might  likewise  be  sustained 
by  a  conscience  void  of  offence."  What  more  is  needed 
to  complete  the  disgusting  picture  ?  Philip  was  fanati- 
cal up  to  the  point  where  fanaticism  borders  upon  hy- 
pocrisy. He  was  possessed  with  a  "great  moral  idea," 
the  idea  of  making  Catholicism  the  ruler  of  the  world, 
that  he  might  be  the  ruler  of  Catholicism.  Why,  it  may 
be  said,  shall  the  charge  of  fanaticism  be  allowed  to  ab- 


SPAIN  AND    THE  NETHERLANDS. 


227 


solve  Isabella  and  extenuate  the  guilt  of  Charles,  while 
it  only  strengthens  the  case  against  Philip  ?  Because 
Isabella  persecuted  heretics  in  order  to  save  their  souls 
from  a  worse  fate,  while  Philip  burnt  them  in  order  to 
get  them  out  of  his  way.  Isabella  would  perhaps  have 
gone  to  the  stake  herself,  if  thereby  she  might  have  put 
an  end  to  heresy.  Philip  would  have  seen  every  soul 
in  Europe  consigned  to  eternal  perdition  before  he  would 
have  yielded  up  an  iota  of  his  claims  to  universal  do- 
minion. He  could  send  Alva  to  browbeat  the  Pope,  as 
well  as  to  oppress  the  Netherlander.  He  could  compass 
the  destruction  of  the  orthodox  Egmont  and  Farnese,  as 
well  as  of  the  heretical  William.  His  unctuous  piety 
only  adds  to  the  abhorrence  with  which  we  regard  him ; 
and  his  humility  in  face  of  death  is  neither  better  nor 
worse  than  the  assumed  humility  which  had  become 
second  nature  to  Uriah  Heep.  In  short,  take  him  for 
all  in  all,  he  was  probably  the  most  loathsome  charac- 
ter in  all  European  history.  He  has  frequently  been 
called,  by  Protestant  historians,  an  incarnate  devil ; 
but  we  do  not  think  that  Mephistopheles  would  ac- 
knowledge him.  He  should  rather  be  classed  among 
those  creatures  described  by  Dante  as  "  a  Dio  spiacenti 
ed  ai  nemici  sui." 

The  abdication  of  Charles  V.  left  Philip  ruler  over 
wider  dominions  than  had  ever  before  been  brought  to- 
gether under  the  sway  of  one  man.  In  his  own  right 
Philip  was  master  not  only  of  Spain,  but  of  the  Nether- 
lands, Tranche  Comt4,  Lombardy,  Naples,  and  Sicily, 
with  the  whole  of  North  and  South  America;  besides 
which  he  was  married  to  the  Queen  of  England.  In  the 
course  of  his  reign  he  became  possessed  of  Portugal,  with 
all  its  vast  domains  in  the  East  Indies.  His  revenues 
were  greater  than  those  of  any  other  contemporary  mon- 


228  SPAIN  AND    THE  NETHERLANDS. 

arch ;  his  navy  was  considered  invincible,  and  his  army 
was  the  best  disciplined  in  Europe.  All  these  great 
advantages  he  was  destined  to  throw  to  the  winds.  In 
the  strife  for  universal  monarchy,  in  the  mad  endeavour 
to  subject  England,  Scotland,  and  France  to  his  own 
dominion  and  the  tyranny  of  the  Inquisition,  besides  re- 
conquering the  Netherlands,  all  his  vast  resources  were 
wasted.  The  Dutch  war  alone,  like  a  bottomless  pit, 
absorbed  all  that  he  could  pour  into  it.  Long  before  the 
war  was  over,  or  showed  signs  of  drawing  to  an  end,  his 
revenues  were  wasted,  and  his  troops  in  Flanders  were 
mutinous  for  want  of  pay.  He  had  to  rely  upon  ener- 
getic viceroys  like  Farnese  and  the  Spinolas  to  furnish 
funds  out  of  their  own  pockets.  Finally,  he  was  obliged 
to  repudiate  all  his  debts ;  and  when  he  died  the  Span- 
ish empire  was  in  such  a  beggarly  condition  that  it 
quaked  at  every  approach  of  a  hostile  Dutch  fleet.  Such 
a  result  is  not  evidence  of  a  statesmanlike  ability ;  but 
Philip's  fanatical  selfishness  was  incompatible  with  states- 
manship. He  never  could  be  made  to  believe  that  his 
projects  had  suffered  defeat.  No  sooner  had  the  Invin- 
cible Armada  been  sent  to  the  bottom  by  the  guns  of 
the  English  fleet  and  the  gales  of  the  German  Ocean, 
than  he  sent  orders  to  Farnese  to  invade  England  at 
once  with  the  land  force  under  his  command !  He 
thought  to  obtain  Scotland,  when,  after  the  death  of 
Mary,  it  had  passed  under  the  undisputed  control  of  the 
Protestant  noblemen.  He  dreamed  of  securing  for  his 
family  the  crown  of  France,  even  after  Henry,  with  free 
consent  of  the  Pope,  had  made  his  triumphal  entry  into 
Paris.  He  asserted  complete  and  entire  sovereignty 
over  the  Netherlands,  even  after  Prince  Maurice  had 
won  back  from  him  the  last  square  foot  of  Dutch  terri- 
tory. Such  obstinacy  as  this  can  only  be  called  fatuity. 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 


229 


If  Philip  had  lived  in  Pagan  times,  he  would  doubt- 
less, like  Caligula,  have  demanded  recognition  of  his 
own  divinity. 

The  miserable  condition  of  the  Spanish  people  under 
this  terrible  reign,  and  the  causes  of  their  subsequent 
degeneracy,  have  been  well  treated  by  Mr.  Motley.  The 
causes  of  the  failure  of  Spanish  civilization  are  partly 
social  and  partly  economical ;  and  they  had  been  oper- 
ating for  eight  hundred  years  when  Philip  succeeded  to 
the  throne.  The  Moorish  conquest  in  711  had  practi- 
cally isolated  Spain  from  the  rest  of  Europe.  In  the 
Crusades  she  took  no  part,  and  reaped  none  of  the  sig- 
nal advantages  resulting  from  that  great  movement. 
Her  whole  energies  were  directed  toward  throwing  off 
the  yoke  of  her  civilized  but  "  unbelieving  "  oppressors. 
For  a  longer  time  than  has  now  elapsed  since  the  Nor- 
man Conquest  of  England,  the  entire  Gothic  population 
of  Spain  was  engaged  in  unceasing  religious  and  patri- 
otic warfare.  The  unlimited  power  thus  acquired  by 
an  unscrupulous  clergy,  and  the  spirit  of  uncompro- 
mising bigotry  thus  imparted  to  the  whole  nation,  are  in 
this  way  readily  accounted  for.  But  in  spite  of  this, 
the  affairs  of  Spain  at  the  accession  of  Charles  V.  were 
not  in  an  unpromising  condition.  The  Spanish  Visi- 
goths had  been  the  least  barbarous  of  the  Teutonic 
settlers  within  the  limits  of  the  Empire;  their  civil 
institutions  were  excellent ;  their  cities  had  obtained 
municipal  liberties  at  an  earlier  date  than  those  of  Eng- 
land ;  and  their  Parliaments  indulged  in  a  liberty  of 
speech  which  would  have  seemed  extravagant  even  to 
De  Montfort.  So  late  as  the  time  of  Ferdinand,  the 
Spaniards  were  still  justly  proud  of  their  freedom ;  and 
the  chivalrous  ambition  which  inspired  the  marvellous 
expedition  of  Cortes  to  Mexico,  and  covered  the  soil  of 


230 


SPAIN  AND    THE  NETHERLANDS. 


Italy  with  Spanish  armies,  was  probably  in  the  main  a 
healthy  one.  But  the  forces  of  Spanish  freedom  were 
united  at  too  late  an  epoch ;  in  1492,  the  power  of  des- 
potism was  already  in  the  ascendant.  In  England  the 
case  was  different.  The  barons  were  enabled  to  com- 
bine and  wrest  permanent  privileges  from  the  crown,  at 
a  time  when  feudalism  was  strong.  But  the  Spanish 
communes  waited  for  combined  action  until  feudalism 
had  become  weak,  and  modern  despotism,  with  its 
standing  armies  and  its  control  of  the  spiritual  power, 
was  arrayed  in  the  ranks  against  them.  The  War  of 
the  Communes,  early  in  the  reign  of  Charles  V.,  irrev- 
ocably decided  the  case  in  favour  of  despotism,  and 
from  that  date  the  internal  decline  of  Spain  may  be  said 
to  have  begun. 

But  the  triumphant  consolidation  of  the  spiritual  and 
temporal  powers  of  despotism,  and  the  abnormal  devel- 
opment of  loyalty  and  bigotry,  were  not  the  only  evil 
results  of  the  chronic  struggle  in  which  Spain  had  been 
engaged.  For  many  centuries,  while  Christian  Spain 
had  been  but  a  fringe  of  debatable  border-land  on  the 
skirts  of  the  Moorish  kingdom,  perpetual  guerilla  war- 
fare had  rendered  consecutive  labour  difficult  or  imprac- 
ticable ;  and  the  physical  configuration  of  the  country 
contributed  in  bringing  about  this  result.  To  plunder 
the  Moors  across  the  border  was  easier  than  to  till  the 
ground  at  home.  Then  as  the  Spaniards,  exemplifying 
the  military  superiority  of  the  feudal  over  the  sultanic 
form  of  social  organization,  proceeded  steadily  to  recover 
dominion  over  the  land,  the  industrious  Moors,  instead 
of  migrating  backward  before  the  advance  of  their  con- 
querors, remained  at  home  and  submitted  to  them. 
Thus  Spanish  society  became  compounded  of  two  dis- 
tinct castes,  —  the  Moorish  Spaniards,  who  were  skilled 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 

labourers,  and  the  Gothic  Spaniards,  by  whom  all  labour, 
crude  or  skilful,  was  deemed  the  stigma  of  a  conquered 
race,  and  unworthy  the  attention  of  respectable  people. 
As  Mr.  Motley  concisely  says  :  — 

"  The  highest  industrial  and  scientific  civilization  that 
had  been  exhibited  upon  Spanish  territory  was  that  of 
Moors  and  Jews.  When  in  the  course  of  time  those 
races  had  been  subjugated,  massacred,  or  driven  into 
exile,  not  only  was  Spain  deprived  of  its  highest  intel- 
lectual culture  and  its  most  productive  labour,  but  in- 
telligence, science,  and  industry  were  accounted  degrad- 
ing, because  the  mark  of  inferior  and  detested  peoples." 

This  is  the  key  to  the  whole  subsequent  history  of 
Spain.  Bigotry,  loyalty,  and  consecrated  idleness  are 
the  three  factors  which  have  made  that  great  country 
what  it  is  to-day,  —  the  most  backward  region  in  Europe. 
In  view  of  the  circumstances  just  narrated,  it  is  not 
surprising  to  learn  that  in  Philip  II.'s  time  a  vast  por- 
tion of  the  real  estate  of  the  country  was  held  by  the 
Church  in  mortmain ;  that  forty-nine  noble  families 
owned  all  the  rest ;  that  all  great  estates  were  held  in 
tail;  and  that  the  property  of  the  aristocracy  and  the 
clergy  was  completely  exempt  from  taxation.  Thus  the 
accumulation  and  the  diffusion  of  capital  were  alike 
prevented;  and  the  few  possessors  of  property  wasted 
it  in  unproductive  expenditure.  Hence  the  funda- 
mental error  of  Spanish  political  economy,  that  wealth 
is  represented  solely  by  the  precious  metals;  an  error 
which  well  enough  explains  the  total  failure,  in  spite  of 
her  magnificent  opportunities,  of  Spain's  attempts  to 
colonize  the  New  World.  Such  was  the  frightful  con- 
dition of  Spanish  society  under  Philip  II. ;  and  as  if 
this  state  of  things  were  not  bad  enough,  the  next  king, 
Philip  III.,  at  the  instigation  of  the  clergy,  decided  to 


232 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 


drive  into  banishment  the  only  class  of  productive  la- 
bourers yet  remaining  in  the  country.  In  1610,  this 
stupendous  crime  and  blunder  —  unparalleled  even  in 
Spanish  history  —  was  perpetrated.  The  entire  Moor- 
ish population  were  expelled  from  their  homes  and 
driven  into  the  deserts  of  Africa.  For  the  awful  conse- 
quences of  this  mad  action  no  remedy  was  possible.  No 
system  of  native  industry  could  be  created  on  demand, 
to  take  the  place  of  that  which  had  been  thus  wantonly 
crushed  forever.  From  this  epoch  dates  the  social  ruin 
of  Spain.  In  less  than  a  century  her  people  were  riot- 
ous with  famine  ;  and  every  sequestered  glen  and  moun- 
tain pathway  throughout  the  country  had  become  a 
lurking-place  for  robbers.  Whoever  would  duly  realize 
to  what  a  lamentable  condition  this  beautiful  peninsula 
had  in  the  seventeenth  century  been  reduced,  let  him 
study  the  immortal  pages  of  Lesage.  He  will  learn 
afresh  the  lesson,  not  yet  sufficiently  regarded  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  social  problems,  that  the  laws  of  nature  can- 
not be  violated  without  entailing  a  penalty  fearful  in 
proportion  to  the  extent  of  the  violation.  But  let  him 
carefully  remember  also  that  the  Spaniards  are  not  and 
never  have  been  a  despicable  people.  If  Spain  has  pro- 
duced one  of  the  lowest  characters  in  history,  she  has  also 
produced  one  of  the  highest.  That  man  was  every  inch 
a  Spaniard  who,  maimed,  diseased,  and  poor,  broken 
down  by  long  captivity,  and  harassed  by  malignant  per- 
secution, lived  nevertheless  a  life  of  grandeur  and  beauty 
fit  to  be  a  pattern  for  coming  generations, —  the  author 
of  a  book  which  has  had  a  wider  fame  than  any  other  in 
the  whole  range  of  secular  literature,  and  which  for  deli- 
cate humour,  exquisite  pathos,  and  deep  ethical  senti- 
ment, remains  to-day  without  a  peer  or  a  rival.  If 
Philip  II.  was  a  Spaniard,  so,  too,  was  Cervantes. 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 


233 


Spain  could  not  be  free,  for  she  violated  every  condi- 
tion by  which  freedom  is  secured  to  a  people.  "  Acute- 
ness  of  intellect,  wealth  of  imagination,  heroic  qualities 
of  heart  and  hand  and  brain,  rarely  surpassed  in  any 
race  and  manifested  on  a  thousand  battle-fields,  and  in 
the  triumphs  of  a  magnificent  and  most  original  litera- 
ture, had  not  been  able  to  save  a  whole  nation  from  the 
disasters  and  the  degradation  which  the  mere  words 
Philip  II.  and  the  Holy  Inquisition  suggest  to  every 
educated  mind."  Nor  could  Spain  possibly  become 
rich,  for,  as  Mr.  Motley  continues,  "  nearly  every  law, 
according  to  which  the  prosperity  of  a  country  becomes 
progressive,  was  habitually  violated."  On  turning  to 
the  Netherlands  we  find  the  most  complete  contrast, 
both  in  historical  conditions  and  in  social  results ;  and 
the  success  of  the  Netherlands  in  their  long  struggle 
becomes  easily  intelligible.  The  Dutch  and  Flemish 
provinces  had  formed  a  part  of  the  renovated  Eoman 
Empire  of  Charles  the  Great  and  the  Othos.  Taking 
advantage  of  the  perennial  contest  for  supremacy  be- 
tween the  popes  and  the  Eoman  emperors,  the  constitu- 
ent baronies  and  municipalities  of  the  Empire  succeeded 
in  acquiring  and  maintaining  a  practical  though  un- 
recognized independence;  and  this  is  the  original  reason 
why  Italy  and  Germany,  unlike  the  three  western  Euro- 
pean communities,  have  remained  fragmentary  until 
our  own  time.  By  reason  of  the  practical  freedom  of 
action  thus  secured,  the  Italian  civic  republics,  the 
Hanse  towns,  and  the  cities  of  Holland  and  Flanders, 
were  enabled  gradually  to  develop  a  vast  commerce. 
The  outlying  position  of  the  Netherlands,  remote  from 
the  imperial  authorities,  and  on  the  direct  line  of  com- 
merce between  Italy  and  England,  was  another  and  a 
peculiar  advantage.  Throughout  the  Middle  Ages  the 


234 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 


Flemish  and  Dutch  cities  were  of  considerable  political 
importance,  and  in  the  fifteenth  century  the  Netherland 
provinces  were  the  most  highly  civilized  portion  of  Eu- 
rope north  of  the  Alps.  For  several  generations  they 
had  enjoyed,  and  had  known  how  to  maintain,  civic 
liberties,  and  when  Charles  and  Philip  attempted  to 
fasten  upon  them  their  "  peculiar  institution,"  the  Span- 
ish Inquisition,  they  were  ripe  for  political  as  well 
as  theological  revolt.  Natural  laws  were  found  to  oper- 
ate on  the  Ehine  as  well  as  on  the  Tagus,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  great  war  of  independence,  Holland  was 
not  only  better  equipped  than  Spain  for  a  European 
conflict,  but  was  rapidly  ousting  her  from  the  East  In- 
dian countries  which  she  had  in  vain  attempted  to 
colonize. 

But  if  we  were  to  take  up  all  the  interesting  and  in- 
structive themes  suggested  by  Mr.  Motley's  work,  we 
should  never  come  to  an  end.  We  must  pass  over 
the  exciting  events  narrated  in  these  last  volumes ; 
the  victory  of  Nieuport,  the  siege  of  Ostend,  the  mar- 
vellous career  of  Maurice,  the  surprising  exploits  of 
Spinola.  We  have  attempted  not  so  much  to  describe 
Mr.  Motley's  book  as  to  indulge  in  sundry  reflections 
suggested  by  the  perusal  of  it.  But  we  cannot  close 
without  some  remarks  upon  a  great  man,  whose  char- 
acter Mr.  Motley  seems  to  have  somewhat  miscon- 
ceived. 

If  Mr.  Motley  exhibits  any  serious  fault,  it  is  per- 
haps the  natural  tendency  to  take  sides  in  the  events 
which  he  is  describing,  which  sometimes  operates  as 
a  drawback  to  complete  and  thoroughgoing  criticism. 
With  every  intention  to  do  justice  to  the  Catholics,  Mr. 
Motley  still  writes  as  a  Protestant,  viewing  all  questions 
from  the  Protestant  side.  He  praises  and  condemns 


SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 


235 


like  a  very  fair-minded  Huguenot,  but  still  like  a  Hu- 
guenot. It  is  for  this  reason  that  he  fails  to  interpret 
correctly  the  very  complex  character  of  Henry  IV.,  re- 
garding him  as  a  sort  of  selfish  renegade  whom  he  can- 
not quite  forgive  for  accepting  the  crown  of  France  at 
the  hands  of  the  Pope.  Now  this  very  action  of  Hen- 
ry, in  the  eye  of  an  impartial  criticism,  must  seem  to  be 
one  of  his  chief  claims  to  the  admiration  and  gratitude 
of  posterity.  Henry  was  more  than  a  mere  Huguenot : 
he  was  a  far-seeing  statesman.  He  saw  clearly  what  no 
ruler  before  him,  save  "William  the  Silent,  had  even 
dimly  discerned,  that  not  Catholicism  and  not  Protest- 
antism, but  absolute  spiritual  freedom  was  the  true  end 
to  be  aimed  at  by  a  righteous  leader  of  opinion.  It  was 
as  a  Catholic  sovereign  that  he  could  be  most  useful 
even  to  his  Huguenot  subjects ;  and  he  shaped  his  course 
accordingly.  It  was  as  an  orthodox  sovereign,  holding 
his  position  by  the  general  consent  of  Europe,  that  he 
could  best  subserve  the  interests  of  universal  toleration. 
This  principle  he  embodied  in  his  admirable  edict  of 
Nantes.  What  a  Huguenot  prince  might  have  done, 
may  be  seen  from  the  shameful  way  in  which  the  French 
Calvinists  abused  the  favour  which  Henry  —  and  Riche- 
lieu  afterwards  —  accorded  to  them.  Remembering  how 
Calvin  himself  "dragooned  "  Geneva,  let  us  be  thankful 
for  the  fortune  which,  in  one  of  the  most  -critical  peri- 
ods of  history,  raised  to  the  highest  position  in  Chris- 
tendom a  man  who  was  something  more  than  a  secta- 
rian. 

With  this  brief  criticism,  we  must  regretfully  take 
leave  of  Mr.  Motley's  work.  Much  more  remains  to  be 
said  about  a  historical  treatise  which  is,  on  the  whole, 
the  most  valuable  and  important  one  yet  produced  by 
an  American  ;  but  we  have  already  exceeded  our  limits. 


236  SPAIN  AND   THE  NETHERLANDS. 

We  trust  that  our  author  will  be  as  successful  in  the 
future  as  he  has  been  in  the  past ;  and  that  we  shall 
soon  have  an  opportunity  of  welcoming  the  first  instal- 
ment of  his  "  History  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War." 

March,  1868. 


XI. 

LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE* 

THE  task  of  a  translator  is  a  thankless  one  at  best. 
Be  he  never  so  skilful  and  accurate,  be  he  never  so 
amply  endowed  with  the  divine  qualifications  of  the 
poet,  it  is  still  questionable  if  he  can  ever  succeed  in 
saying  satisfactorily  with  new  words  that  which  has  once 
been  inimitably  said  —  said  for  all  time  —  with  the  old 
words.  Psychologically,  there  is  perhaps  nothing  more 
complex  than  an  elaborate  poem.  The  sources  of  its  ef- 
fect upon  our  minds  may  be  likened  to  a  system  of  forces 
which  is  in  the  highest  degree  unstable  ;  and  the  slight- 
est displacement  of  phrases,  by  disturbing  the  delicate 
rhythmical  equilibrium  of  the  whole,  must  inevitably 
awaken  a  jarring  sensation.-f-  Matthew  Arnold  has 
given  us  an  excellent  series  of  lectures  upon  translating 
Homer,  in  which  he  doubtless  succeeds  in  showing  that 
some  methods  of  translation  are  preferable  to  others,  but 

*  The  Divine  Comedy  of  Dante  Alighieri.  Translated  by  Henry 
Wadsworth  Longfellow.  3  vols.  Boston  :  Ticknor  &  Fields,  1867. 

t  As  Dante  himself  observes,  "E  per6  sappia  ciascuno,  che  nulla 
cosa  per  legame  musaico  armonizzata  si  puo  della  sua  loquela  in  altra 
trasmutare  sanza  rompere  tutta  sua  dolcezza  e  armouia.  E  questa  e  la 
ragione  per  che  Omero  non  si  mut6  di  greco  in  latino,  come  1'  altre 
scritture  che  avemo  da  loro  :  e  questa  e  la  ragione  per  che  i  versi  del 
Psaltero  sono  sanza  dolcezza  di  musica  e  d'  armonia  ;  che  essi  furono 
trasmutati  d'  ebreo  in  greco,  e  di  greco  in  latino,  e  nella  prima  tras- 
rrmtazione  tutta  quella  dolcezza  venne  meno."  Convito,  I.  7,  Opere 
Minori,  Tom.  III.  p.  80.  The  noble  English  version  of  the  Psalms 
possesses  a  beauty  which  is  all  its  own. 


238  LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 

in  which  he  proves  nothing  so  forcibly  as  that  the  sim- 
plicity and  grace,  the  rapidity,  dignity,  and  fire,  of  Ho- 
mer are  quite  incommunicable,  save  by  the  very  words 
in  which  they  first  found  expression.  And  what  is  thus 
said  of  Homer  will  apply  to  Dante  with  perhaps  even 
greater  force.  With  nearly  all  of  Homer's  grandeur  and 
rapidity,  though  not  with  nearly  all  his  simplicity,  the 
poem  of  Dante  manifests  a  peculiar  intensity  of  subjec- 
tive feeling  which  was  foreign  to  the  age  of  Homer,  as 
indeed  to  all  pre-Christian  antiquity.  But  concerning 
this  we  need  not  dilate,  as  it  has  often  been  duly  re- 
marked upon,  and  notably  by  Carlyle,  in  his  "  Lectures 
on  Hero-Worship."  Who  that  has  once  heard  the  wail 
of  unutterable  despair  sounding  in  the  line 

"  AM,  dura  terra,  perche  non  t'  apristi  ? " 

can  rest  satisfied  with  the  interpretation 

"Ah,  obdurate  earth,  wherefore  didst  thou  not  open  ?  " 

yet  this  rendering  is  literally  exact. 

A  second  obstacle,  hardly  less  formidable,  hardly  less 
fatal  to  a  satisfactory  translation,  is  presented  by  the 
highly  complicated  system  of  triple  rhyme  upon  which 
Dante's  poem  is  constructed.  This,  which  must  ever  be 
a  stumbling-block  to  the  translator,  seems  rarely  to  in- 
terfere with  the  free  and  graceful  movement  of  the 
original  work.  The  mighty  thought  of  the  master  felt 
no  impediment  from  the  elaborate  artistic  panoply  which 
must  needs  obstruct  and  harass  the  interpretation  of 
the  disciple.  Dante's  terza  rima  is  a  bow  of  Odysseus 
which  weaker  mortals  cannot  bend  with  any  amount  of 
tugging,  and  which  Mr.  Longfellow  has  judiciously  re- 
frained from  trying  to  bend.  Yet  no  one  can  fail  to 
remark  the  prodigious  loss  entailed  by  this  necessary 
sacrifice  of  one  of  the  most  striking  characteristics  of 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE.  239 

the  original  poem.  Let  any  one  who  has  duly  reflected 
upon  the  strange  and  subtle  effect  produced  on  him  by 
the  peculiar  rhyme  of  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriam,"  en- 
deavour to  realize  the  very  different  effect  which  would 
be  produced  if  the  verses  were  to  be  alternated  or  coupled 
in  successive  pairs,  or  if  rhyme  were  to  be  abandoned 
for  blank  verse.  The  exquisite  melody  of  the  poem 
would  be  silenced.  The  rhyme-system  of  the  "  Divine 
Comedy  "  refuses  equally  to  be  tampered  with  or  ignored. 
Its  effect  upon  the  ear  and  the  mind  is  quite  as  remark- 
able as  that  of  the  rhyme-system  of  "  In  Memoriam  " ; 
and  the  impossibility  of  reproducing  it  is  one  good 
reason  why  Dante  must  always  suffer  even  more  from 
translation  than  most  poets. 

Something,  too,  must  be  said  of  the  difficulties  inev- 
itably arising  from  the  diverse  structure  and  genius  of 
the  Italian  and  English  languages.  None  will  deny 
that  many  of  them  are  insurmountable.  Take  the  third 
line  of  the  first  canto,  — 

"  Che  la  diritta  via  era  smarrita," 
which  Mr.  Longfellow  translates 

"  For  the  straightforward  pathway  had  been  lost." 

Perhaps  there  is  no  better  word  than  "  lost "  by  which  to 
translate  smarrita  in  this  place  ;  yet  the  two  words  are 
far  from  equivalent  in  force.  About  the  word  smarrita 
there  is  thrown  a  wide  penumbra  of  meaning  which  does 
not  belong  to  the  word  lost*  By  its  diffuse  connota- 
tions the  word  smarrita  calls  up  in  our  minds  an  ade- 
quate picture  of  the  bewilderment  and  perplexity  of  one 
who  is  lost  in  a  trackless  forest.  The  high-road  with- 
out, beaten  hard  by  incessant  overpassing  of  men  and 
beasts  and  wheeled  vehicles,  gradually  becomes  meta- 

*  See  Diez,  Romance  Dictionary,  s.  v.  -"Marrir." 


240  LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 

morphosed  into  the  shady  lane,  where  grass  sprouts  up 
rankly  between  the  ruts,  where  bushes  encroach  upon 
the  roadside,  where  fallen  trunks  now  and  then  inter- 
cept the  traveller;  and  this  in  turn  is  lost  in  crooked 
by-ways,  amid  brambles  and  underbrush  and  tangled 
vines,  growing  fantastically  athwart  the  path,  shootiDg 
up  on  all  sides  of  the  bewildered  wanderer,  and  render- 
ing advance  and  retreat  alike  hopeless.  No  one  who  in 
childhood  has  wandered  alone  in  the  woods  can  help 
feeling  all  this  suggested  by  the  word  smarrita  in  this 
passage.  How  bald  in  comparison  is  the  word  lost, 
which  might  equally  be  applied  to  a  pathway,  a  reputa- 
tion, and  a  pocket-book !  *  The  English  is  no  doubt 
the  most  copious  and  variously  expressive  of  all  living 
languages,  yet  I  doubt  if  it  can  furnish  any  word  capa- 
ble by  itself  of  calling  up  the  complex  images  here  sug- 
gested by  smarrita.-^  And  this  is  but  one  example,  out 
of  many  that  might  be  cited,  in  which  the  lack  of  exact 
parallelism  between  the  two  languages  employed  causes 
every  translation  to  suffer. 

All  these,  however,  are  difficulties  which  lie  in  the 
nature  of  things,  —  difficulties  for  which  the  translator  is 
not  responsible  ;  of  which  he  must  try  to  make  the  best 
that  can  be  made,  but  which  he  can  never  expect  wholly 
to  surmount.  We  have  now  to  inquire  whether  there 
are  not  other  difficulties,  avoidable  by  one  method  of 
translation,  though  not  by  another ;  and  in  criticizing 
Mr.  Longfellow,  we  have  chiefly  to  ask  whether  he  has 

*  On  literally  retranslating  lost  into  Italian,  we  should  get  the  quite 
different  word  perduta. 

t  The  more  flexible  method  of  Dr.  Parsons  leads  to  a  more  satisfac- 
tory but  still  inadequate  result  :  — 

"  Half-way  on  our  life's  journey,  in  a  wood, 
From  the  right  path  I  fouud  myself  astray." 


LONGFELLO  WS  DANTE. 


241 


chosen  the  best  method  of  translation,  —  that  which 
most  surely  and  readily  awakens  in  the  reader's  mind 
the  ideas  and  feelings  awakened  by  the  original. 

The  translator  of  a  poem  may  proceed  upon  either  of 
two  distinct  principles.  In  the  first  case,  he  may  ren- 
der the  text  of  his  original  into  English,  line  for  line 
and  word  for  word,  preserving  as  far  as  possible  its  exact 
verbal  sequences,  and  translating  each  individual  word 
into  an  English  word  as  nearly  as  possible  equivalent  in 
its  etymological  force.  In  the  second  case,  disregarding 
mere  syntactic  and  etymologic  equivalence,  his  aim  will 
be  to  reproduce  the  inner  meaning  and  power  of  the 
original,  so  far  as  the  constitutional  difference  of  the 
two  languages  will  permit  him. 

It  is  the  first  of  these  methods  that  Mr.  Longfellow 
has  followed  in  his  translation  of  Dante.  Fidelity  to 
the  text  of  the  original  has  been  his  guiding  principle ; 
and  every  one  must  admit  that,  in  carrying  out  that 
principle,  he  has  achieved  a  degree  of  success  alike  de- 
lightful and  surprising.  The  method  of  literal  transla- 
tion is  not  likely  to  receive  any  more  splendid  illustra- 
tion. It  is  indeed  put  to  the  test  in  such  a  way  that 
the  shortcomings  now  to  be  noticed  bear  not  upon  Mr. 
Longfellow's  own  style  of  work  so  much  as  upon  the 
method  itself  with  which  they  are  necessarily  impli- 
cated. These  defects  are,  first,  the  too  frequent  use  of 
syntactic  inversion,  and  secondly,  the  too  manifest  pref- 
erence extended  to  words  of  Romanic  over  words  of 
Saxon  origin. 

To  illustrate  the  first  point,  let  me  give  a  few  exam- 
ples. In  Canto  I.  we  have :  — 

"  So  bitter  is  it,  death  is  little  more  ; 
But  of  the  good  to  treat  which  there  I  found, 
Speak  will  I  of  the  other  things  I  saw  there  "  ; 
11  v 


242 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


which  is  thus  rendered  by  Mr.  Gary,  — 

"  Which  to  remember  only,  my  dismay 
Renews,  in  bitterness  not  far  from  death. 
Yet  to  discourse  of  what  there  good  befell, 
All  else  will  I  relate  discovered  there  " ; 

and  by  Dr.  Parsons, — 

"  Its  very  thought  is  almost  death  to  me  ; 
Yet,  having  found  some  good  there,  I  will  tell 
Of  other  things  which  there  I  chanced  to  see. "  * 

Again  in  Canto  X.  we  find :  — 

"  Their  cemetery  have  upon  this  side 
With  Epicurus  all  his  followers, 
Who  with  the  body  mortal  make  the  soul "  ;  — 

an  inversion  which  is  perhaps  not  more  unidiomatic 
than  Mr.  Gary's,  — 

"  The  cemetery  on  this  part  obtain 
With  Epicurus  all  his  followers, 
Who  with  the  body  make  the  spirit  die  "  ; 

but  which  is  advantageously  avoided  by  Mr.  Wright,  — 

"  Here  Epicurus  hath  his  fiery  tomb, 
And  with  him  all  his  followers,  who  maintain 
That  soul  and  body  share  one  common  doom  " ; 

and  is  still  better  rendered  by  Dr.  Parsons,  — 

"  Here  in  their  cemetery  on  this  side, 
With  his  whole  sect,  is  Epicurus  pent, 
Who  thought  the  spirit  with  its  body  died. "  t 

And  here  my  eyes,  reverting  to  the  end  of  Canto  IX., 

*  "  Tanto  e  amara,  che  poco  e  piu  morte  : 
Ma  per  trattar  del  ben  ch'  i'  vi  trovai, 
Dir6  dell'  altre  cose,  ch'  io  v'  ho  scorte." 

Inferno,  I.  7-10. 

t  "  Suo  cimitero  da  questa  parte  hanno 
Con  Epicuro  tutti  i  suoi  seguaci, 
Che  1'  anima  col  corpo  morta  fanno." 

Inferno,  X.  13-15. 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE.  243 

fall  upon  a  similar  contrast  between  Mr.  Longfellow's 
lines,  — 

"  For  flames  between  the  sepulchres  were  scattered, 
By  which  they  so  intensely  heated  were, 
That  iron  more  so  asks  not  any  art,"  — 

and  those  of  Dr.  Parsons,  — 

"  For  here  mid  sepulchres  were  sprinkled  fires, 
Wherewith  the  enkindled  tombs  all-burning  gleamed  ; 
Metal  more  fiercely  hot  no  art  requires."  * 

Does  it  not  seem  that  in  all  these  cases  Mr.  Longfel- 
low, and  to  a  slightly  less  extent  Mr.  Gary,  by  their 
strict  adherence  to  the  letter,  transgress  the  ordinary 
rules  of  English  construction ;  and  that  Dr.  Parsons,  by 
his  comparative  freedom  of  movement,  produces  better 
poetry  as  well  as  better  English  ?  In  the  last  example 
especially,  Mr.  Longfellow's  inversions  are  so  violent 
that  to  a  reader  ignorant  of  the  original  Italian,  his  sen- 
tence might  be  hardly  intelligible.  In  Italian  such  in- 
versions are  permissible ;  in  English  they  are  not ;  and 
Mr.  Longfellow,  by  transplanting  them  into  English, 
sacrifices  the  spirit  to  the  letter,  and  creates  an  obscu- 
rity in  the  translation  where  all  is  lucidity  in  the  origi- 
nal. Does  not  this  show  that  the  theory  of  absolute 
literality,  in  the  case  of  two  languages  so  widely  differ- 
ent as  English  and  Italian,  is  not  the  true  one  ? 

Secondly,  Mr.  Longfellow's  theory  of  translation  leads 
him  in  most  cases  to  choose  words  of  Eomanic  origin  in 
preference  to  those  of  Saxon  descent,  and  in  many  cases 
to  choose  an  unfamiliar  instead  of  .a  familiar  Romanic 
word,  because  the  former  happens  to  be  etymologically 

*  "  Che  tra  gli  avelli  fiamme  erano  sparte, 
Per  le  quali  eran  si  del  tutto  accesi, 
Che  ferro  piu  non  chiede  verun'  arte." 

Inferno,  IX.  118-120. 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 

identical  with  the  word  in  the  original.  Let  me  cite  as 
an  example  the  opening  of  Canto  III. :  — 

"  Per  me  si  va  nella  citta  dolente, 
Per  me  si  va  nell'  eterno  dolore, 
Per  me  si  va  tra  la  perduta  gente." 

Here  are  three  lines  which,  in  their  matchless  simplicity 
and  grandeur,  might  well  excite  despair  in  the  breast  of 
any  translator.  Let  us  contrast  Mr.  Longfellow's  ver- 
sion. — 

"  Through  me  the  way  is  to  the  city  dolent ; 

Through  me  the  way  is  to  eternal  dole  ; 

Through  me  the  way  among  the  people  lost,"  — 

with  that  of  Dr.  Parsons,  — 

"  Through  me  you  reach  the  city  of  despair  ; 
Through  me  eternal  wretchedness  ye  find  ; 
Through  me  among  perdition's  race  ye  fare." 

I  do  not  think  any  one  will  deny  that  Dr.  Parsons's  ver- 
sion, while  far  more  remote  than  Mr.  Longfellow's  from 
the  diction  of  the  original,  is  somewhat  nearer  its  spirit. 
It  remains  to  seek  the  explanation  of  this  phenomenon. 
It  remains  to  be  seen  why  words  the  exact  counterpart 
of  Dante's  are  unfit  to  call  up  in  our  minds  the  feelings 
which  Dante's  own  words  call  up  in  the  mind  of  an 
Italian.  And  this  inquiry  leads  to  some  general  consid- 
erations respecting  the  relation  of  English  to  other  Eu- 
ropean languages. 

Every  one  is  aware  that  French  poetry,  as  compared 
with  German  poetry,  seems  to  the  English  reader  very 
tame  and  insipid ;  but  the  cause  of  this  fact  is  by  no 
means  so  apparent  as  the  fact  itself.  That  the  poetry  of 
Germany  is  actually  and  intrinsically  superior  to  that  of 
France,  may  readily  be  admitted ;  but  this  is  not  enough 
to  account  for  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case.  It  does 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


245 


not  explain  why  some  of  the  very  passages  in  Corneille 
and  Eacine,  which  to  us  appear  dull  and  prosaic,  are  to 
the  Frenchman's  apprehension  instinct  with  poetic  fer- 
vour. It  does  not  explain  the  undoubted  fact  that  we, 
who  speak  English,  are  prone  to  underrate  French  poe- 
try, while  we  are  equally  disposed  to  render  to  German 
poetry  even  more  than  its  due  share  of  merit.  The  rea- 
son is  to  be  sought  in  the  verbal  associations  established 
in  our  minds  by  the  peculiar  composition  of  the  English 
language.  Our  vocabulary  is  chiefly  made  up  on  the 
one  hand  of  indigenous  Saxon  words,  and  on  the  other 
hand  of  words  derived  from  Latin  or  French.  It  is 
mostly  words  of  the  first  class  that  we  learn  in  child- 
hood, and  that  are  associated  with  our  homeliest  and 
deepest  emotions ;  while  words  of  the  second  class  — 
usually  acquired  somewhat  later  in  life  and  employed 
in  sedate  abstract  discourse  —  have  an  intellectual  rather 
than  an  emotional  function  to  fulfil.  Their  original  sig- 
nifications, the  physical  metaphors  involved  in  them, 
which  are  perhaps  still  somewhat  apparent  to  the 
Frenchman,  are  to  us  wholly  non-existent.  Nothing 
but  the  derivative  or  metaphysical  signification  remains. 
No  physical  image  of  a  man  stepping  over  a  boundary 
is  presented  to  our  minds  by  the  word  transgress,  nor  in 
using  the  word  comprehension  do  we  picture  to  ourselves 
any  manual  act  of  grasping.  It  is  to  this  .double  struct- 
ure of  the  English  language  that  it  owes  its  superiority 
over  every  other  tongue,  ancient  or  modern,  for  philo- 
sophical and  scientific  purposes.  Albeit  there  are  nu- 
merous exceptions,  it  may  still  be  safely  said,  in  a  gen- 
eral way,  that  we  possess  and  habitually  use  two  kinds 
of  language,  —  one  that  is  physical,  for  our  ordinary 
purposes,  and  one  that  is  metaphysical,  for  purposes 
of  abstract  reasoning  and  discussion.  .We  do  not  say, 


246  LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 

like  the  Germans,  that  we  "  begripe  "  (begreifen)  an  idea, 
but  we  say  that  we  "conceive"  it.  We  use  a  word 
which  once  had  the  very  same  material  meaning  as 
begreifen,  but  which  has  in  our  language  utterly  lost  it. 
We  are  accordingly  able  to  carry  on  philosophical  inqui- 
ries by  means  of  words  which  are  nearly  or  quite  free 
from  those  shadows  of  original  concrete  meaning  which, 
in  German,  too  often  obscure  the  acquired  abstract  sig- 
nification. Whoever  has  dealt  in  English  and  German 
metaphysics  will  not  fail  to  recognize  the  prodigious 
superiority  of  English  in  force  and  perspicuity,  arising 
mainly  from  the  causes  here  stated.  But  while  this 
homogeneity  of  structure  in  German  injures  it  for  philo- 
sophical purposes,  it  is  the  very  thing  which  makes  it 
so  excellent  as  an  organ  for  poetical  expression,  in  the 
opinion  of  those  who  speak  English.  German  being 
nearly  allied  to  Anglo-Saxon,  not  only  do  its  simple 
words  strike  us  with  all  the  force  of  our  own  homely 
Saxon  terms,  but  its  compounds  also,  preserving  their 
physical  significations  almost  unimpaired,  call  up  in  our 
minds  concrete  images  of  the  greatest  definiteness  and 
liveliness.  It  is  thus  that  German  seems  to  us  pre-emi- 
nently a  poetical  language,  and  it  is  thus  that  we  are 
naturally  inclined  to  overrate  rather  than  to  depreciate 
the  poetry  that  is  written  in  it. 

With  regard  to  French,  the  case  is  just  the  reverse. 
The  Frenchman  has  no  Saxon  words,  but  he  has,  on  the 
other  hand,  an  indigenous  stock  of  Latin  words,  which 
he  learns  in  early  childhood,  which  give  outlet  to  his 
most  intimate  feelings,  and  which  retain  to  some  extent 
their  primitive  concrete  picturesqueness.  They  are  to 
him  just  as  good  as  our  Saxon  words  are  to  us.  Though 
cold  and  merely  intellectual  to  us,  they  are  to  him  warm 
with  emotion ;  and  this  is  one  reason  why  we  cannot  do 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


247 


justice  to  his  poetry,  or  appreciate  it  as  lie  appreciates 
it.  To  make  this  perfectly  clear,  let  us  take  two  or 
three  lines  from  Shakespeare :  — 

"  Blow,  blow,  thou  winter  wind  ! 
Thou  art  not  so  unkind 
As  man's  ingratitude. 
Thy  tooth  is  not  so  keen,"  etc.,  etc. ; 

which  I  have  somewhere  seen  thus  rendered  into  French: 

"Souffle,  souffle,  vent  d'hiver  ! 
Tu  n'es  pas  si  cruel 
Que  1'ingratitude  de  1'homrae. 
Ta  dent  n'est  pas  si  penetrante,"  etc.,  etc. 

Why  are  we  inclined  to  laugh  as  we  read  this  ?  Be- 
cause it  excites  in  us  an  undercurrent  of  consciousness 
which,  if  put  into  words,  might  run  something  like 

this  : — 

"  Insufflate,  insufflate,  wind  hibernal  ! 
Thou  art  not  so  cruel 
As  human  ingratitude. 
Thy  dentition  is  not  so  penetrating,"  etc.,  etc. 

No  such  effect  would  be  produced  upon  a  Frenchman. 
The  translation  would  strike  him  as  excellent,  which  it 
really  is.  The  last  line  in  particular  would  seem  poeti- 
cal to  us,  did  we  not  happen  to  have  in  our  language 
words  closely  akin  to  dent  and  penetrante,  and  familiarly 
employed  in  senses  that  are  not  poetical.  . 

Applying  these  considerations  to  Mr.  Longfellow's 
choice  of  words  in  his  translation  of  Dante,  we  see  at 
once  the  unsoimdness  of  the  principle  that  Italian  words 
should  be  rendered  by  their  Romanic  equivalents  in 
English.  Words  that  are  etymologically  identical  with 
those  in  the  original  are  often,  for  that  very  reason,  the 
worst  words  that  could  be  used.  They  are  harsh  and 
foreign  to  the  English  ear,  however  homelike  and  musi- 


248  LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 

cal  they  may  be  to  the  ear  of  an  Italian.  Their  con- 
notations are  unlike  in  the  two  languages ;  and  the 
translation  which  is  made  literally  exact  by  using  them 
is  at  the  same  time  made  actually  inaccurate,  or  at  least 
inadequate.  Dole  and  dolent  are  doubtless  the  exact 
counterparts  of  dolor e  and  dolente,  so  far  as  mere  ety- 
mology can  go.  But  when  we  consider  the  effect  that  is 
to  be  produced  upon  the  mind  of  the  reader,  wretcJiedness 
and  despairing  are  far  better  equivalents.  The  former 
may  compel  our  intellectual  assent,  but  the  latter  awaken 
our  emotional  sympathy. 

Doubtless  by  long  familiarity  with  the  Eomanic  lan- 
guages, the  scholar  becomes  to  a  great  degree  emanci- 
pated from  the  conditions  imposed  upon  him  by  the 
peculiar  composition  of  his  native  English.  The  con- 
crete significance  of  the  Romanic  words  becomes  appar- 
rent  to  him,  and  they  acquire  energy  and  vitality.  The 
expression  dolent  may  thus  satisfy  the  student  familiar 
with  Italian,  because  it  calls  up  in  his  mind,  through 
the  medium  of  its  equivalent  dolente,  the  same  associa- 
tions which  the  latter  calls  up  in  the  mind  of  the  Ital- 
ian himself.*  But  this  power  of  appreciating  thorough- 
ly the  beauties  of  a  foreign  tongue  is  in  the  last  degree 
an  acquired  taste,  —  as  much  so  as  the  taste  for  olives 
and  kirschenwasser  to  the  carnal  palate.  It  is  only  by 
long  and  profound  study  that  we  can  thus  temporarily 
vest  ourselves,  so  to  speak,  with  a  French  or  Italian 
consciousness  in  exchange  for  our  English  one.  The 
literary  epicure  may  keenly  relish  such  epithets  as  do- 
lent  ;  but  the  common  English  reader,  who  loves  plain 

*  A  consummate  Italian  scholar,  the  delicacy  of  whose  taste  is  ques- 
tioned by  no  one,  and  whose  knowledge  of  Dante's  diction  is  probably 
not  inferior  to  Mr.  Longfellow's,  has  told  me  that  he  regards  the  ex- 
pression as  a  noble  and  effective  one,  full  of  dignity  and  solemnity. 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE.  249 

fare,  can  hardly  fail  to  be  startled  by  it.  To  him  it 
savours  of  the  grotesque ;  and  if  there  is  any  one  thing 
especially  to  be  avoided  in  the  interpretation  of  Dante, 
it  is  grotesqueness. 

Those  who  have  read  over  Dante  without  reading  into 
him,  and  those  who  have  derived  their  impressions  of 
his  poem  from  M.  Dore's  memorable  illustrations,  will 
here  probably  demur.  What !  Dante  not  grotesque ! 
That  funnel-shaped  structure  of  the  infernal  pit ;  Minos 
passing  sentence  on  the  damned  by  coiling  his  tail; 
Charon  beating  the  lagging  shades  with  his  oar ;  Antaios 
picking  up  the  poets  with  his  fingers  and  lowering  them 
in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  into  the  Ninth  Circle ;  Satan 
crunching  in  his  monstrous  jaws  the  arch-traitors,  Judas, 
Brutus  and  Cassius  ;  Ugolino  appeasing  his  famine  upon 
the  tough  nape  of  Euggieri ;  Bertrand  de  Born  looking 
(if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression)  at  his  own  dis- 
severed head;  the  robbers  exchanging  form  with  ser- 
pents ;  the  whole  demoniac  troop  of  Malebolge,  —  are 
not  all  these  things  grotesque  beyond  everything  else  in 
poetry  ?  To  us,  nurtured  in  this  scientific  nineteenth 
century,  they  doubtless  seem  so;  and  by  Leigh  Hunt, 
who  had  the  eighteenth-century  way  of  appreciating 
other  ages  than  his  own,  they  were  uniformly  treated 
as  such.  To  us  they  are  at  first  sight  grotesque,  because 
they  are  no  longer  real  to  us.  We  have  ceased  to 
believe  in  such  things,  and  they  no  longer  awaken  any 
feeling  akin  to  terror.  But  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
in  the  minds  of  Dante  and  his  readers,  they  were  living, 
terrible  realities.  That  Dante  believed  literally  in  all 
this  unearthly  world,  and  described  it  with  such  won- 
derful minuteness  because  he  believed  in  it,  admits  of 
little  doubt.  As  he  walked  the  streets  of  Verona  the 
people  whispered,  "  See,  there  is  the  man  who  has  been 
11* 


250 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


in  hell ! "  Truly,  he  had  been  in  hell,  and  described 
it  as  he  had  seen  it,  with  the  keen  eyes  of  imagination 
and  faith.  With  all  its  weird  unearthliness,  there  is 
hardly  another  book  in  the  whole  range  of  human  lit- 
erature which  is  marked  with  such  unswerving  veracity 
as  the  "Divine  Comedy."  Nothing  is  there  set  down 
arbitrarily,  out  of  wanton  caprice  or  for  the  sake  of 
poetic  effect,  but  because  to  Dante's  imagination  it  had 
so  imposingly  shown  itself  that  he  could  not  but  de- 
scribe it  as  he  saw  it.  In  reading  his  cantos  we  forget 
the  poet,  and  have  before  us  only  the  veracious  trav- 
eller in  strange  realms,  from  whom  the  shrewdest  cross- 
examination  can  elicit  but  one  consistent  account.  To 
his  mind,  and  to  the  mediaeval  mind  generally,  this 
outer  kingdom,  with  its  wards  of  Despair,  Expiation, 
and  Beatitude,  was  as  real  as  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
itself.  Its  extraordinary  phenomena  were  not  to  be 
looked  on  with  critical  eyes  and  called  grotesque,  but 
were  to  be  seen  with  eyes  of  faith,  and  to  be  wor- 
shipped, loved,  or  shuddered  at.  Rightly  viewed,  there- 
fore, the  poem  of  Dante  is  not  grotesque,  but  unspeakably 
awful  and  solemn ;  and  the  statement  is  justified  that 
all  grotesqueness  and  bizarrerie  in  its  interpretation  is 
to  be  sedulously  avoided. 

Therefore,  while  acknowledging  the  accuracy  with 
which  Mr.  Longfellow  has  kept  pace  with  his  origi- 
nal through  line  after  line,  following  the  "footing  of 
its  feet,"  according  to  the  motto  quoted  on  his  title- 
page,  I  cannot  but  think  that  his  accuracy  would 
have  been  of  a  somewhat  higher  kind  if  he  had 
now  and  then  allowed  himself  a  little  more  liberty  of 
choice  between  English  and  Romanic  words  and  idioms. 

A  few  examples  will  perhaps  serve  to  strengthen  as 
well  as  to  elucidate  still  further  this  position. 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


251 


"Inferno,"  Canto  III.,  line  22,    according  to  Long- 
fellow :  — 

"  There  sighs,  complaints,  and  ululations  loud 
Resounded  through  the  air  without  a  star, 
Whence  I  at  the  beginning  wept  thereat." 

According  to  Gary :  — 

"  Here  sighs,  with  lamentations  and  loud  moans 
Resounded  through  the  air  pierced  by  no  star, 
That  e'en  I  wept  at  entering." 

According  to  Parsons :  — 

"  Mid  sighs,  laments,  and  hollow  howls  of  woe, 
Which,  loud  resounding  through  the  starless  air, 
Forced  tears  of  pity  from  mine  eyes  at  first."* 

Canto  V.,  line  84  :  - 

LONGFELLOW.  —  "  Fly  through  the  air  by  their  volition  borne." 
GARY.  —  "  Cleave  the  air,  wafted  by  their  will  along." 
PARSONS.  —  "  Sped  ever  onward  by  their  wish  alone,  "t 

Canto  XVII.,  line  42  :  - 

LONGFELLOW.  —  "That  he  concede  to  us  his  stalwart  shoulders." 
CARY.  —  "  That  to  us  he  may  vouchsafe 

The  aid  of  his  strong  shoulders." 
PARSONS.  —  "  And  ask  for  us  his  shoulders'  strong  support."  J 

Canto  XVII.,  line  25  :  — 

LONGFELLOW.  —  "  His  tail  was  wholly  quivering  in  the  void, 
Contorting  upwards  the  envenomed  fork 
That  in  the  guise  of  scorpion  armed  its  point." 
CARY.  —  "In  the  void 

Glancing,  his  tail  upturned  its  venomous  fork, 
With  sting  like  scorpions  armed." 

*  "  Quivi  sospiri,  pianti  ed  alti  guai 
Risonavan  per  1'  aer  senza  stelle, 
Perch'  io  al  cominciar  ne  lagrimai." 

t  "  Volan  per  1'  aer  dal  voler  portate." 

±  "  Che  ne  conceda  i  suoi  omeri  forti." 


252 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


PARSONS.  —  "In  the  void  chasm  his  trembling  tail  he  showed, 
As  up  the  envenomed,  forked  point  he  swung, 
Which,  as  in  scorpions,  armed  its  tapering  end."  * 

Canto  V.,  line  51 :  — 

LONGFELLOW.  —  "  People  whom  the  black  air  so  castigates." 
GARY.  —  "By  the  black  air  so  scourged."  t 

Line  136  :  — 

LONGFELLOW.  —  "  Kissed  me  upon  the  mouth  all  palpitating." 
GARY.  —  "  My  lips  all  trembling  kissed."  £ 

"  Purgatorio,"  Canto  XV.,  line  139  :  — 

LONGFELLOW.  —  "We  passed  along,  athwart  the  twilight  peering 
Forward  as  far  as  ever  eye  could  stretch 
Against  the  sunbeams  serotine  and  lucent. "  § 

Mr.  Gary's  "bright  vespertine  ray"  is  only  a  trifle 
better ;  but  Mr.  Wright's  "  splendour  of  the  evening 
ray  "  is,  in  its  simplicity,  far  preferable. 

Canto  XXXI.,  line  131:  — 

LONGFELLOW.  —         "  Did  the  other  three  advance 
Singing  to  their  angelic  saraband." 
GARY.  —  "To  their  own  carol  on  they  came 

Dancing,  in  festive  ring  angelical." 
WRIGHT.  —  "And  songs  accompanied  their  angel  dance." 

Here  Mr.  Longfellow  has  apparently  followed  the 
authority  of  the  Crusca,  reading 

"  Cantando  al  loro  angelico  carribo," 

and  translating  carribo  by  saraband,  a  kind  of  Moorish 

! 

*  "  Nel  vano  tutta  sua  coda  guizzava, 

Torcendo  in  su  la  venenosa  forca, 

Che,  a  guisa  di  scorpion,  la  punta  armava." 
•f  "Genti  che  1'  aura  nera  si  gastiga." 
$  "  La  bocca  mi  baci6  tutto  tremante." 
§  "  Noi  andavam  per  lo  vespero  attenti 

Oltre,  quanto  potean  gli  occhi  allungarsi, 

Contra  i  raggi  serotiui  e  luceuti." 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


253 


dance.  The  best  manuscripts,  however,  sanction  M. 
Witte's  reading:  — 

"  Danzando  al  loro  angelico  carribo." 

If  this  be  correct,  carribo  cannot  signify  "  a  dance,"  but 
rather  "  the  song  which  accompanies  the  dance  " ;  and 
the  true  sense  of  the  passage  will  have  been  best  ren- 
dered by  Mr.  Gary.* 

Whenever  Mr.  Longfellow's  translation  is  kept  free 
from  oddities  of  diction  and  construction,  it  is  very  ani- 
mated and  vigorous.  Nothing  can  be  finer  than  his 
rendering  of  "  Purgatorio,"  Canto  VI.,  lines  97  -  117 :  — 

"  0  German  Albert !  who  abandon est 

Her  that  has  grown  recalcitrant  and  savage, 

And  oughtest  to  bestride  her  saddle-bow, 
May  a  just  judgment  from  the  stars  down  fall 

Upon  thy  blood,  and  be  it  new  and  open, 

That  thy  successor  may  have  fear  thereof : 
Because  thy  father  and  thyself  have  suffered, 

By  greed  of  those  transalpine  lands  distrained, 

The  garden  of  the  empire  to  be  waste. 
Come  and  behold  Montecchi  and  Cappelletti, 

Monaldi  and  Filippeschi,  careless  man  ! 

Those  sad  already,  and  these  doubt-depressed  ! 
Come,  cruel  one  !  come  and  behold  the  oppression 

Of  thy  nobility,  and  cure  their  wounds, 

And  thou  shalt  see  how  safe  [?]  is  Santafiore. 
Come  and  behold  thy  Rome  that  is  lamenting, 

Widowed,  alone,  and  day  and  night  exclaims 

'  My  Caesar,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ? ' 
Come  and  behold  how  loving  are  the  people  J 

And  if  for  us  no  pity  moveth  thee, 

Come  and  be  made  ashamed  of  thy  renown."  f 

*  See  Blanc,  Vocabolario  Dantesco,  s.  v.  "caribo." 

t  "  0  Alberto  Tedesco,  che  abbandoni 

Costei  ch'  e  fatta  indomita  e  selvaggia, 
E  dovresti  inforcar  li  suoi  arcioni, 
Giusto  giudizio  dalle  stelle  caggia 

Sopra  il  tuo  sangue,  e  sia  nuovo  ed  aperto, 
Tal  che  il  tuo  successor  temenza  n'-  aggia  : 


254 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


So,  too,  Canto  III.,  lines  79  -  84 :  — 

1 '  As  sheep  come  issuing  forth  from  out  the  fold 

By  ones,  and  twos,  and  threes,  and  the  others  stand 
Timidly  holding  down  their  eyes  and  nostrils, 
And  what  the  foremost  does  the  others  do 
Huddling  themselves  against  her  if  she  stop, 
Simple  and  quiet,  and  the  wherefore  know  not."* 

Francesca's  exclamation  to  Dante  is  thus  rendered  by 
Mr.  Longfellow:  — 

"And  she  to  me  :  There  is  no  greater  sorrow 
Than  to  be  mindful  of  the  happy  time 
In  misery."  t 

This  is  admirable,  —  full   of  the  true  poetic  glow, 
which  would  have  been  utterly  quenched  if  some  Eo- 

Che  avete  tu  e  il  tuo  padre  sofferto, 
Per  cupidigia  di  costa  distretti, 
Che  il  giardin  dell'  imperio  sia  diserto. 

Vieni  a  veder  Montecchi  e  Cappelletti, 
Monaldi  e  Filippeschi,  uom  senza  cura  : 
Color  gia  tristi,  e  questi  con  sospetti. 

Vien,  crudel,  vieni,  e  vedi  la  pressura 
De'  tuoi  gentili,  e  cura  lor  magagne, 
E  vedrai  Santafior  com'  e  oscura  [secura  ?  ]. 

Vieni  a  veder  la  tua  Roma  che  piagne, 
Vedova  e  sola,  e  dl  e  notte  chiama  : 
Cesare  mio,  perche  non  m'  accompagne  ? 

Vieni  a  veder  la  gente  quanto  s*  ama  ; 
E  se  nulla  di  noi  pieta  ti  move, 
A  vergognar  ti  vien  della  tua  fama." 
*  "  Come  le  pecorelle  escon  del  chiuso 

Ad  una,  a  due,  a  tre,  e  1"  altre  stanno 
Timidette  atterrando  1'  occhio  e  il  muso  ; 

E  ci6  che  fa  la  prima,  e  1'  altre  fanno, 
Addossandosi  a  lei  s'  ella  s'  arresta, 
Semplici  e  quete,  e  lo  'mperche  non  sanno." 

t  "Ed  ella  a  me  :  Nessun  maggior  dolore 
Che  ricordarsi  del  tempo  felice 
Nella  miseria." 

Inferno,  V.  121  - 123. 


LONGFELLO  W  'S  DANTE. 


255 


manic  equivalent  of  dolore  had  been  used  instead  of 
our  good  Saxon  sorrow*  So,  too,  the  "Paradiso," 
Canto  L,  line  100  :  - 

"Whereupon  she,  after  a  pitying  sigh, 
Her  eyes  directed  toward  me  with  that  look 
A  mother  casts  on  a  delirious  child."  t 

And,  finally,  the  beginning  of  the  eighth  canto  of  the 
"  Purgatorio  "  :  — 

"  'T  was  now  the  hour  that  turneth  back  desire 
In  those  who  sail  the  sea,  and  melts  the  heart, 
The  day  they  Ve  said  to  their  sweet  friends  farewell ; 
And  the  new  pilgrim  penetrates  with  love, 
If  he  doth  hear  from  far  away  a  bell 
That  seemeth  to  deplore  the  dying  day."  J 

This  passage  affords  an  excellent  example  of  what  the 
method  of  literal  translation  can  do  at  its  best.  Except 
in  the  second  line,  where  "  those  who  sail  the  sea "  is 
wisely  preferred  to  any  Romanic  equivalent  of  navigan- 
ti  the  version  is  utterly  literal;  as  literal  as  the  one 
the  school-boy  makes,  when  he  opens  his  Virgil  at  the 
Fourth  Eclogue,  and  lumberingly  reads,  "  Sicilian  Muses, 
let  us  sing  things  a  little  greater."  But  there  is  nothing 
clumsy,  nothing  which  smacks  of  the  recitation-room,  in 

*  Yet  admirable  as  it  is,  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  Dr.  Parsons,  by 
taking  further  liberty  with  the  original,  has  not  surpassed  it :  — 
"  And  she  to  me  :  The  mightiest  of  all  woes 
Is  in  the  midst  of  misery  to  be  cursed 
With  bliss  remembered." 

t  "Ond'  ella,  appresso  d'un  pio  sospiro, 

Gli  occhi  drizzo  ver  me  con  quel  sembiante, 
Che  madre  fa  sopra  figliuol  deliro." 

t  "Era  gia  1'  ora  che  volge  il  disio 

Ai  naviganti,  e  intenerisce  il  core 
Lo  di  ch'  han  detto  ai  dolci  amici  addio  ; 
E  che  lo  nuovo  peregrin  d'  amore 
Punge,  se  ode  squilla  di  lontano, 
Che  paia  il  giorno  pianger  che  si  more." 


256  LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 

these  lines  of  Mr.  Longfellow.  Tor  easy  grace  and  ex- 
quisite beauty  it  would  be  difficult  to  surpass  them. 
They  may  well  bear  comparison  with  the  beautiful  lines 
into  which  Lord  Byron  has  rendered  the  same  thought :  — 

"  Soft  hour  which  wakes  the  wish,  and  melts  the  heart, 
Of  those  who  sail  the  seas,  on  the  first  day 

When  they  from  their  sweet  friends  are  torn  apart ; 
Or  fills  with  love  the  pilgrim  on  his  way, 

As  the  far  bell  of  vesper  makes  him  start, 
Seeming  to  weep  the  dying  day's  decay. 

Is  this  a  fancy  which  our  reason  scorns  ? 

Ah,  surely  nothing  dies  but  something  mourns  ! "  * 

Setting  aside  the  concluding  sentimental  generalization, 
—  which  is  much  more  Byronic  than  Dantesque,  —  one 
hardly  knows  which  version  to  call  more  truly  poetical  > 
but  for  a  faithful  rendering  of  the  original  conception 
one  can  hardly  hesitate  to  give  the  palm  to  Mr.  Long- 
fellow. 

Thus  we  see  what  may  be  achieved  by  the  most  high- 
ly gifted  of  translators  who  contents  himself  with  pas- 
sively reproducing  the  diction  of  his  original,  who  con- 
stitutes himself,  as  it  were,  a  conduit  through  which  the 
meaning  of  the  original  may  flow.  Where  the  differen- 
ces inherent  in  the  languages  employed  do  not  intervene 
to  alloy  the  result,  the  stream  of  the  original  may,  as  in 
the  verses  just  cited,  come  out  pure  and  un weakened. 
Too  often,  however,  such  is  the  subtle  chemistry  of 
thought,  it  will  come  out  diminished  in  its  integrity,  or 
will  appear,  bereft  of  its  primitive  properties  as  a  mere 
element  in  some  new  combination.  Our  channel  is  a 
trifle  too  alkaline  perhaps ;  and  that  the  transferred  ma- 
terial may  preserve  its  pleasant  sharpness,  we  may  need 
to  throw  in  a  little  extra  acid.  Too  often  the  mere  dif- 

*  Don  Juan,  III.  108. 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


257 


ferences  between  English  and  Italian  prevent  Dante'a 
expressions  from  coming  out  in  Mr.  Longfellow's  version 
so  pure  and  unimpaired  as  in  the  instance  just  cited. 
But  these  differences  cannot  be  ignored.  They  lie  deep 
in  the  very  structure  of  human  speech,  and  are  narrowly 
implicated  with  equally  profound  nuances  in  the  com- 
position of  human  thought.  The  causes  which  make 
dolente  a  solemn  word  to  the  Italian  ear,  and  dolent  a 
queer  word  to  the  English  ear,  are  causes  which  have 
been  slowly  operating  ever  since  the  Italican  and  the 
Teuton  parted  company  on  their  way  from  Central  Asia. 
They  have  brought  about  a  state  of  things  which  no 
cunning  of  the  translator  can  essentially  alter,  but  to 
the  emergencies  of  which  he  must  graciously  conform 
his  proceedings.  Here,  then,  is  the  sole  point  on  which 
we  disagree  with  Mr.  Longfellow,  the  sole  reason  we 
have  for  thinking  that  he  has  not  attained  the  fullest 
possible  measure  of  success.  Not  that  he  has  made  a 
"  realistic  "  translation,  —  so  far  we  conceive  him  to  be 
entirely  right ;  but  that,  by  dint  of  pushing  sheer  literal- 
ism beyond  its  proper  limits,  he  has  too  often  failed  to 
be  truly  realistic.  Let  us  here  explain  what  is  meant 
by  realistic  translation. 

Every  thoroughly  conceived  and  adequately  executed 
translation  of  an  ancient  author  must  be  founded  upon 
some  conscious  theory  or  some  unconscious  instinct  of 
literary  criticism.  As  is  the  critical  spirit  of  an  age, 
so  among  other  things  will  be  its  translations.  Now  the 
critical  spirit  of  every  age  previous  to  our  own  has  been 
characterized  by  its  inability  to  appreciate  sympathet- 
ically the  spirit  of  past  and  bygone  times.  In  the 
seventeenth  century  criticism  made  idols'  of  its  ancient 
models;  it  acknowledged  no  serious  imperfections  in 
them ;  it  set  them  up  as  exemplars  for  the  present  and 

Q 


258 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


all  future  times  to  copy.  Let  the  genial  Epicurean 
henceforth  write  like  Horace,  let  the  epic  narrator 
imitate  the  supreme  elegance  of  Virgil,  —  that  was  the 
conspicuous  idea,  the  conspicuous  error,  of  seventeenth- 
century  criticism.  It  overlooked  the  differences  be- 
tween one  age  and  another.  Conversely,  when  it  brought 
Eoman  patricians  and  Greek  oligarchs  on  to  the  stage, 
it  made  them  behave  like  French  courtiers  or  Castilian 
grandees  or  English  peers.  When  it  had  to  deal  with 
ancient  heroes,  it  clothed  them  in  the  garb  and  im- 
puted to  them  the  sentiments  of  knights- errant.  Then 
came  the  revolutionary  criticism  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  which  assumed  that  everything  old  was  wrong, 
while  everything  new  was  right.  It  recognized  crudely 
the  differences  between  one  age  and  another,  but  it  had 
a  way  of  looking  down  upon  all  ages  except  the  present. 
This  intolerance  shown  toward  the  past  was  indeed  a 
measure  of  the  crudeness  with  which  it  was  compre- 
hended. Because  Mohammed,  if  he  had  done  what  he 
did,  in  France  and  in  the  eighteenth  century,  would  have 
been  called  an  impostor,  Voltaire,  the  great  mouthpiece 
and  representative  of  this  style  of  criticism,  pourtrays 
him  as  an  impostor.  Eecognition  of  the  fact  that  differ- 
ent ages  are  different,  together  with  inability  to  perceive 
that  they  ought  to  be  different,  that  their  differences  lie 
in  the  nature  of  progress,  —  this  was  the  prominent 
characteristic  of  eighteenth-century  criticism.  Of  all 
the  great  men  of  that  century,  Lessing  was  perhaps  the 
only  one  who  outgrew  this  narrow  critical  habit. 

Now  nineteenth-century  criticism  not  only  knows 
that  in  no  preceding  age  have  men  thought  and  be- 
haved as  they  now  think  and  behave,  but  it  also  under- 
stands that  old-fashioned  thinking  and  behaviour  was 
in  its  way  just  as  natural  and  sensible  as  that  which 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 


259 


is  now  new-fashioned.  It  does  not  flippantly  sneer  at 
an  ancient  custom  because  we  no  longer  cherish  it; 
but  with  an  enlightened  regard  for  everything  human, 
it  inquires  into  its  origin,  traces  its  effects,  and  endeav- 
ours to  explain  its  decay.  It  is  slow  to  characterize 
Mohammed  as  an  impostor,  because  it  has  come  to 
feel  that  Arabia  in  the  seventh  century  is  one  thing  and 
Europe  in  the  nineteenth  another.  It  is  scrupulous 
about  branding  Caesar  as  an  usurper,  because  it  has 
discovered  that  what  Mr.  Mill  calls  republican  liberty 
and  what  Cicero  called  republican  liberty  are  widely 
different  notions.  It  does  not  tell  us  to  bow  down 
before  Lucretius  and  Virgil  as  unapproachable  models, 
while  lamenting  our  own  hopeless  inferiority ;  nor  does 
it  tell  us  to  set  them  down  as  half-skilled  apprentices, 
while  congratulating  ourselves  on  our  own  comfortable 
superiority ;  but  it  tells  us  to  study  them  as  the  ex- 
ponents of  an  age  forever  gone,  from  which  we  have 
still  many  lessons  to  learn,  though  we  no  longer  think 
as  it  thought  or  feel  as  it  felt.  The  eighteenth  century, 
as  represented  by  the  characteristic  passage  from  Vol- 
taire, cited  by  Mr.  Longfellow,  failed  utterly  to  un- 
derstand Dante.  To  the  minds  of  Voltaire  and  his 
contemporaries  the  great  mediaeval  poet  was  little  else 
than  a  Titanic  monstrosity,  —  a  maniac,  whose  ravings 
found  rhythmical  expression;  his  poem  a  grotesque 
medley,  wherein  a  few  beautiful  verses  were  buried 
under  the  weight  of  whole  cantos  of  nonsensical  scho- 
lastic quibbling.  This  view,  somewhat  softened,  we 
find  also  in  Leigh  Hunt,  whose  whole  account  of  Dante 
is  an  excellent  specimen  of  this  sort  of  criticism.  Mr. 
Hunt's  fine  moral  nature  was  shocked  and  horrified 
by  the  terrible  punishments  described  in  the  "  Inferno." 
He  did  not  duly  consider  that  in  Dante's  time  these 


26o  LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 

fearful  things  were  an  indispensable  part  of  every  man's 
theory  of  the  world ;  and,  blinded  by  his  kindly  preju- 
dices, he  does  not  seem  to  have  perceived  that  Dante, 
in  accepting  eternal  torments  as  part  and  parcel  of  the 
system  of  nature,  was  nevertheless,  in  describing  them, 
inspired  with  that  ineffable  tenderness  of  pity  which, 
in  the  episodes  of  Francesca  and  of  Brunetto  Latini,  has 
melted  the  hearts  of  men  in  past  times,  and  will  con- 
tinue to  do  so  in  times  to  come.  "  Infinite  pity,  yet 
infinite  rigour  of  law !  It  is  so  Nature  is  made :  it  is 
so  Dante  discerned  that  she  was  made."  *  This  remark 
of  the  great  seer  of  our  time  is  what  the  eighteenth 
century  could  in  no  wise  comprehend.  The  men  of  that 
day  failed  to  appreciate  Dante,  just  as  they  were  op- 
pressed or  disgusted  at  the  sight  of  Gothic  architecture  > 
just  as  they  pronounced  the  scholastic  philosophy  an 
unmeaning  jargon;  just  as  they  considered  mediaeval 
Christianity  a  gigantic  system  of  charlatanry,  and  were 
wont  unreservedly  to  characterize  the  Papacy  as  a 
blighting  despotism.  In  our  time  cultivated  men  think 
differently.  "We  have  learned  that  the  interminable 
hair-splitting  of  Aquinas  and  Abelard  has  added  pre- 
cision to  modern  thinking. -f*  We  do  not  curse  Gregory 
VII.  and  Innocent  III.  as  enemies  of  the  human  race, 
but  revere  them  as  benefactors.  We  can  spare  a  morsel 
of  hearty  admiration  for  Becket,  however  strongly  we 
may  sympathize  with  the  stalwart  king  who  did  pen- 
ance for  his  foul  murder ;  and  we  can  appreciate  Dante's 
poor  opinion  of  Philip  the  Fair  no  less  than  his  denun- 
ciation of  Boniface  VIII.  The  contemplation  of  Gothic 
architecture,  as  we  stand  entranced  in  the  sublime 
cathedrals  of  York  or  Eouen,  awakens  in  our  breasts 

*  Carlyle,  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship,  p.  84. 

t  See  my  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,  Vol.  I.  p.  123. 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE.  26l 

a  genuine  response  to  the  mighty  aspirations  which 
thus  became  incarnate  in  enduring  stone.  And  the 
poem  of  Dante  —  which  has  been  well  likened  to  a 
great  cathedral  —  we  reverently  accept,  with  all  its 
quaint  carvings  and  hieroglyphic  symbols,  as  the  au- 
thentic utterance  of  feelings  which  still  exist,  though 
they  no  longer  choose  the  same  form  of  expression. 

A  century  ago,  therefore,  a  translation  of  Dante  such 
as  Mr.  Longfellow's  would  have  been  impossible.  The 
criticism  of  that  time  was  in  no  mood  for  realistic  re- 
productions of  the  antique.  It  either  superciliously 
neglected  the  antique,  or  else  dressed  it  up  to  suit  its 
own  notions  of  propriety.  It  was  not  like  a  seven- 
league  boot  which  could  fit  everybody,  but  it  was  like  a 
Procrustes-bed  which  everybody  must  be  made  to  fit. 
Its  great  exponent  was  not  a  Sainte-Beuve,  but  a  Boi- 
leau.  Its  typical  sample  of  a  reproduction  of  the  an- 
tique was  Pope's  translation  of  the  Iliad.  That  book, 
we  presume,  everybody  has  read ;  and  many  of  those 
who  have  read  it  know  that,  though  an  excellent  and 
spirited  poem,  it  is  no  more  Homer  than  the  age  of  Queen 
Anne  was  the  age  of  Peisistratos.  Of  the  translations  of 
Dante  made  during  this  period,  the  chief  was  unques- 
tionably Mr.  Gary's.*  For  a  man  bom  and  brought  up 
in  the  most  unpoetical  of  centuries,  Mr.  Gary  certainly 
made  a  very  good  poem,  though  not  so  good  as  Pope's. 
But  it  fell  far  short  of  being  a  reproduction  of  Dante. 
The  eighteenth-century  note  rings  out  loudly  on  every 
page  of  it.  Like  much  other  poetry  of  the  time,  it  is 
laboured  and  artificial.  Its  sentences  are  often  involved 
and  occasionally  obscure.  Take,  for  instance,  Canto  IV. 
25  -  36  of  the  "  Paradiso  " : 

*  This  work  comes  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth -century  period,  as 
Pope's  translation  of  Homer  comes  at  the  beginning. 


262  LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE. 

"  These  are  the  questions  which  they  will 
Urge  equally  ;  and  therefore  I  the  first 
Of  that  will  treat  which  hath  the  more  of  gall. 
Of  seraphim  he  who  is  most  enskied, 
Moses,  and  Samuel,  and  either  John, 
Choose  which  thou  wilt,  nor  even  Mary's  self, 
Have  not  in  any  other  heaven  their  seats, 
Than  have  those  spirits  which  so  late  thou  saw'st ; 
Nor  more  or  fewer  years  exist ;  but  all 
Make  the  first  circle  beauteous,  diversely 
Partaking  of  sweet  life,  as  more  or  less 
Afflation  of  eternal  bliss  pervades  them." 

Here  Mr.  Gary  not  only  fails  to  catch  Dante's  grand 
style  ;  he  does  not  even  write  a  style  at  all.  It  is  too 
constrained  and  awkward  to  be  dignified,  and  dignity  is 
an  indispensable  element  of  style.  Without  dignity  we 
may  write  clearly,  or  nervously,  or  racily,  but  we  have 
not  attained  to  a  style.  This  is  the  second  shortcoming 
of  Mr.  Gary's  translation.  Like  Pope's,  it  fails  to  catch 
the  grand  style  of  its  original.  Unlike  Pope's,  it  fre- 
quently fails  to  exhibit  any  style. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  spend  much  time  in  proving 
that  Mr.  Longfellow's  version  is  far  superior  to  Mr. 
Gary's.  It  is  usually  easy  and  flowing,  and  save  in  the 
occasional  use  of  violent  inversions,  always  dignified. 
Sometimes,  as  in  the  episode  of  Ugolino,  it  even  rises  to 
something  like  the  grandeur  of  the  original : 

"When  he  had  said  this,  with  his  eyes  distorted, 
The  wretched  skull  resumed  he  with  his  teeth, 
Which,  as  a  dog's,  upon  the  bone  were  strong."  * 

That  is  in  the  grand  style,  and  so  is  the  following,  which 

*  "  Quand'  ebbe  detto  ci6,  con  gli  occhi  torti 
Riprese  il  teschio  misero  coi  denti, 
Che  furo  all'  osso,  come  d'  un  can,  forti." 

Inferno,  XXXIII.  76. 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE.  263 

describes  those  sinners  locked  in  the  frozen  lake  below 
Malebolge :  — 

"  Weeping  itself  there  does  not  let  them  weep, 
And  grief  that  finds  a  barrier  in  the  eyes 
Turns  itself  inward  to  increase  the  anguish.  * 

And  the  exclamation  of  one  of  these  poor  "  wretches  of 
the  frozen  crust"  is  an  exclamation  that  Shakespeare 
might  have  written  :  — 

"  Lift  from  mine  eyes  the  rigid  veils,  that  I 
May  vent  the  sorrow  which  impregns  my  heart."  t 

There  is  nothing  in  Mr.  Gary's  translation  which  can 
stand  a  comparison  with  that.  The  eighteenth  century 
could  not  translate  like  that.  For  here  at  last  we  have 
a  real  reproduction  of  the  antique.  In  the  Shakespear- 
ian ring  of  these  lines  we  recognize  the  authentic  ren- 
dering of  the  tones  of  the  only  man  since  the  Christian 
era  who  could  speak  like  Shakespeare. 

In  this  way  Mr.  Longfellow's  translation  is,  to  an 
eminent  degree,  realistic.  It  is  a  work  conceived  and 
executed  in  entire  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  our 
time.  Mr.  Longfellow  has  set  about  making  a  recon- 
structive translation,  and  he  has  succeeded  in  the  at- 
tempt. In  view  of  what  he  has  done,  no  one  can 
ever  wish  to  see  the  old  methods  of  Pope  and  Gary 
again  resorted  to.  It  is  only  where  he  fail's  to  be  truly 
realistic  that  he  comes  short  of  success.  And,  as  al- 

*  "  Lo  pianto  stesso  11  pianger  non  lascia, 

E  il  duol,  che  trova  in  sugli  occhi  rintoppo, 
Si  volve  in  entro  a  far  crescer  1'  ambascia. " 

Inferno,  XXXIII.  94. 

+  "  Levatemi  dal  viso  i  duri  veli, 

SI  ch'  io  sfoghi  il  dolor  che  il  cor  m'  impregna." 

Ib.  112. 


264 


LONGFELLO  W  'S  DANTE. 


ready  hinted,  it  is  oftenest  through  sheer  excess  of  liter- 
alism that  he  ceases  to  be  realistic,  and  departs  from  the 
spirit  of  his  author  instead  of  coming  nearer  to  it.  In 
the  "  Paradiso,"  Canto  X.  1-6,  his  method  leads  him 
into  awkwardness :  — 

"  Looking  into  His  Son  with  all  the  love 
Which  each  of  them  eternally  breathes  forth, 
The  primal  and  unutterable  Power 
Whate'er  before  the  mind  or  eye  revolves 
With  so  much  order  made,  there  can  be  none 
Who  this  beholds  without  enjoying  Him." 

This  seems  clumsy  and  halting,  yet  it  is  an  extremely 
literal  paraphrase  of  a  graceful  and  flowing  original :  — 

' '  Guardando  nel  suo  figlio  con  1'  amore 
Che  1'  uno  e  1'  altro  eternalmente  spira, 
Lo  primo  ed  ineffabile  Valore, 
Quanto  per  mente  o  per  loco  si  gira 

Con  tanto  ordine  fe',  ch'  esser  non  puote 
Senza  gustar  di  lui  chi  ci6  rimira." 

Now  to  turn  a  graceful  and  flowing  sentence  into  one 
that  is  clumsy  and  halting  is  certainly  not  to  reproduce 
it,  no  matter  how  exactly  the  separate  words  are  ren- 
dered, or  how  closely  the  syntactic  constructions  match 
each  other.  And  this  consideration  seems  conclusive  as 
against  the  adequacy  of  the  literalist  method.  That 
method  is  inadequate,  not  because  it  is  too  realistic,  but 
because  it  runs  continual  risk  of  being  too  verbalist™. 
It  has  recently  been  applied  to  the  translation  of  Dante 
by  Mr.  Rossetti,  and  it  has  sometimes  led  him  to  write 
curious  verses.  For  instance,  he  makes  Francesca  say 
to  Dante,  — 

"  0  gracious  and  benignant  animal !  " 

for 

"  0  animal  grazioso  e  benigno  ! " 

Mr.  Longfellow's  good  taste   has  prevented  his  doing 


LOXGFELLOWS  DANTE. 


265 


anything  like  this,  yet  Mr.  Eossetti's  extravagance  is 
due  to  an  unswerving  adherence  to  the  very  rules  by 
which  Mr.  Longfellow  has  been  guided. 

Good  taste  and  poetic  genius  are,  however,  better  than 
the  best  of  rules,  and  so,  after  all  said  and  done,  we  can 
only  conclude  that  Mr.  Longfellow  has  given  us  a  great 
and  noble  work  not  likely  soon  to  be  equalled.  Leo- 
pardi  somewhere,  in  speaking  of  the  early  Italian  trans- 
lators of  the  classics  and  their  well-earned  popularity, 
says,  who  knows  but  Caro  will  live  in  men's  remem- 
brance as  long  as  Virgil  ?  "La  belle  destinee,"  adds 
Sainte-Beuve,  "  de  ne  pouvoir  plus  mourir,  sinon  avec 
un  immortel ! "  Apart  from  Mr.  Longfellow's  other 
titles  to  undying  fame,  such  a  destiny  is  surely  marked 
out  for  him,  and  throughout  the  English  portions  of  the 
world  his  name  will  always  be  associated  with  that  of 
the  great  Florentine. 

June,  1867. 


XII. 

PAINE'S  "ST.   PETER" 

FOE  music-lovers  in  America  the  great  event  of  the 
season  has  been  the  performance  of  Mr.  Paine's 
oratorio,  "  St.  Peter,"  at  Portland,  June  3.  This  event  is 
important,  not  only  as  the  first  appearance  of  an  Ameri- 
can oratorio,  but  also  as  the  first  direct  proof  we  have 
had  of  the  existence  of  creative  musical  genius  in  this 
country.  For  Mr.  Paine's  Mass  in  D  —  a  work  which 
was  brought  out  with  great  success  several  years  ago  in 
Berlin  —  has,  for  some  reason  or  other,  never  been  per- 
formed here.  And,  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Paine, 
we  know  of  no  American  hitherto  who  has  shown  either 
the  genius  or  the  culture  requisite  for  writing  music  in 
the  grand  style,  although  there  is  some  of  the  Kapell- 
meister music,  written  by  our  leading  organists  and 
choristers,  which  deserves  honourable  mention.  Con- 
cerning the  rank  likely  to  be  assigned  by  posterity  to 
"  St.  Peter,"  it  would  be  foolish  now  to  speculate ;  and 
it  would  be  equally  unwise  to  bring  it  into  direct  com- 
parison with  masterpieces  like  the  "  Messiah,"  "  Elijah," 
and  "  St.  Paul,"  the  greatness  of  which  has  been  so  long  ac- 
knowledged. Longer  familiarity  with  the  work  is  needed 
before  such  comparisons,  always  of  somewhat  doubtful 
value,  can  be  profitably  undertaken.  But  it  must  at 
least  be  said,  as  the  net  result  of  our  impressions  de- 
rived both  from  previous  study  of  the  score  and  from 
hearing  the  performance  at  Portland,  that  Mr.  Paine's 


PAINE' S  "ST.   PETER."  26? 

oratorio  has  fairly  earned  for  itself  the  right  to  be  judged 
by  the  same  high  standard  which  we  apply  to  these  no- 
ble works  of  Mendelssohn  and  Handel. 

In  our  limited  space  we  can  give  only  the  briefest 
description  of  the  general  structure  of  the  work.  The 
founding  of  Christianity,  as  illustrated  in  four  principal 
scenes  of  the  life  of  St.  Peter,  supplies  the  material  for 
the  dramatic  development  of  the  subject.  The  over- 
ture, beginning  with  an  adagio  movement  in  B-flat 
minor,  gives  expression  to  the  vague  yearnings  of  that 
time  of  doubt  and  hesitancy  when  the  "  oracles  were 
dumb,"  and  the  dawning  of  a  new  era  of  stronger  and 
diviner  faith  was  matter  of  presentiment  rather  than  of 
definite  hope  or  expectation.  Though  the  tonality  is  at 
first  firmly  established,  yet  as  the  movement  becomes 
more  agitated,  the  final  tendency  of  the  modulations 
also  becomes  uncertain,  and  for  a  few  bars  it  would 
seem  as  if  the  key  of  F-sharp  minor  might  be  the  point 
of  destination.  But  after  a  short  melody  by  the  wind 
instruments,  accompanied  by  a  rapid  upward  movement 
of  strings,  the  dominant  chord  of  C  major  asserts  itself, 
being  repeated,  with  sundry  inversions,  through  a  dozen 
bars,  and  leading  directly  into  the  triumphant  and  ma- 
jestic chorus,  "  The  time  is  fulfilled,  and  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  at  hand."  The  second  subject,  introduced  by 
the  word  "  repent "  descending  through  the  interval  of  a 
diminished  seventh  and  contrasted  with  the  florid  coun- 
terpoint of  the  phrase,  "  and  believe  the  glad  tidings  of 
God,"  is  a  masterpiece  of  contrapuntal  writing,  and,  if 
performed  by  a  choir  of  three  or  four  hundred  voices, 
would  produce  an  overpowering  effect.  The  divine  call 
of  Simon  Peter  and  his  brethren  is  next  described  in  a 
tenor  recitative ;  and  the  acceptance  of  the  glad  tidings 
is  expressed  in  an  aria,  "  The  spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon 


268  PAINE'S  "ST.   PETER." 

me,"  which,  by  an  original  but  appropriate  conception, 
is  given  to  the  soprano  voice.  In  the  next  number,  the 
disciples  are  dramatically  represented  by  twelve  basses 
and  tenors,  singing  in  four-part  harmony,  and  alternat- 
ing or  combining  with  the  full  chorus  in  description  of 
the  aims  of  the  new  religion.  The  proem  ends  with 
the  choral,  "  How  lovely  shines  the  Morning  Star ! " 
Then  follows  the  sublime  scene  from  Matthew  xvi.  14- 
18,  where  Peter  declares  his  master  to  be  "the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  the  living  God,"  —  one  of  the  most  impressive 
scenes,  we  have  always  thought,  in  the  gospel  history, 
and  here  not  inadequately  treated.  The  feeling  of  mys- 
terious and  awful  grandeur  awakened  by  Peter's  bold 
exclamation,  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,"  is  powerfully  ren- 
dered by  the  entrance  of  the  trombones  upon  the  in- 
verted subdominant  triad  of  C-sharp  minor,  and  their 
pause  upon  the  dominant  of  the  same  key.  Throughout 
this  scene  the  characteristic  contrast  between  the  ardent 
vigour  of  Peter  and  the  sweet  serenity  of  Jesus  is  well 
delineated  in  the  music.  After  Peter's  stirring  aria, 
"  My  heart  is  glad,"  the  dramatic  climax  is  reached  in 
the  C-major  chorus,  "  The  Church  is  built  upon  the 
foundation  of  the  apostles  and  prophets." 

The  second  scene  is  carried  out  to  somewhat  greater 
length,  corresponding  nearly  to  the  last  half  of  the  first 
part  of  "  Elijah,"  from  the  point  where  the  challenge  is 
given  to  the  prophets  of  Baal.  In  the  opening  passages 
of  mingled  recitative  and  arioso,  Peter  is  forewarned 
that  he  shall  deny  his  Master,  and  his  half-indignant  re- 
monstrance is  sustained,  with  added  emphasis,  by  the 
voices  of  the  twelve  disciples,  pitched  a  fourth  higher. 
Then  Judas  comes,  with  a  great  multitude,  and  Jesus  is 
carried  before  the  high-priest.  The  beautiful  F-minor 
chorus,  "  We  liid  our  faces  from  him,"  furnishes  the 


PAINE' s  "ST.  PETER: 


269 


musical  comment  upon  the  statement  that "  the  disci- 
ples all  forsook  him  and  fled."  We  hardly  dare  to  give 
full  expression  to  our  feelings  about  this  chorus  (which 
during  the  past  month  has  been  continually  singing 
itself  over  and  over  again  in  our  recollection),  lest  it 
should  be  supposed  that  our  enthusiasm  has  got  the  bet- 
ter of  our  sober  judgment.  The  second  theme,  "He 
was  brought  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter,  yet  he  opened 
not  his  mouth,"  is  quite  Handel-like  in  the  simplicity 
and  massiveness  of  its  magnificent  harmonic  progres- 
sions. With  the  scene  of  the  denial,  for  which  we  are 
thus  prepared,  the  dramatic  movement  becomes  exceed- 
ingly rapid,  and  the  rendering  of  the  events  in  the  high- 
priest's  hall  —  Peter's  bass  recitative  alternating  its 
craven  protestations  with  the  clamorous  agitato  chorus 
of  the  servants  —  is  stirring  in  the  extreme.  The  con- 
tralto aria  describing  the  Lord's  turning  and  looking 
upon  Peter  is  followed  by  the  orchestra  with  a  lament 
in  B-flat  minor,  introducing  the  bass  aria  of  the  repent- 
ant and  remorse-stricken  disciple,  "0  God,  my  God, 
forsake  me  not."  As  the  last  strains  of  the  lamentation 
die  away,  a  choir  of  angels  is  heard,  of  sopranos  and 
contraltos  divided,  singing,  "  Eemember  from  whence 
thou  art  fallen,"  to  an  accompaniment  of  harps.  The 
second  theme,  "  He  that  overcometh  shall  receive  a 
crown  of  life,"  is  introduced  in  full  chorus,  in  a  cheer- 
ing allegro  movement,  preparing  the  way  for  a  climax 
higher  than  any  yet  reached  in  the  course  of  the  work. 
This  climax  —  delayed  for  a  few  moments  by  an  andante 
aria  for  a  contralto  voice,  "The  Lord  is  faithful  and 
righteous  "  —  at  last  bursts  upon  us  with: a  superb  cres- 
cendo of  strings,  and  the  words, "  Awake,  thou  that  sleep- 
est,  arise  from  the  dead,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light." 
This  chorus,  which  for  reasons  presently  to  be  given  was 


270 


PAINE' S   "ST.   PETER" 


heard  at  considerable  disadvantage  at  Portland,  contains 
some  of  the  best  fugue-writing  in  the  work,  and  is  es- 
pecially rich  and  powerful  in  its  instrumentation. 

The  second  part  of  the  oratorio  begins  with  the  cruci- 
fixion and  ascension  of  Jesus.  Here  we  must  note  es- 
pecially the  deeply  pathetic  opening  chorus,  "  The  Son 
of  Man  was  delivered  into  the  hands  of  sinful  men," 
the  joyous  allegro,  "  And  on  the  third  day  he  rose  again," 
the  choral,  "  Jesus,  my  Redeemer,  lives,"  and  the  quartet, 
"Feed  the  flock  of  God,"  commenting  upon  the  com- 
mand of  Jesus,  "Feed  my  lambs."  This  quartet  has 
all  the  heavenly  sweetness  of  Handel's  "  He  shall  feed 
his  flock,"  which  it  suggests  by  similarity  of  subject, 
though  not  by  similarity  of  treatment ;  but  in  a  certain 
quality  of  inwardness,  or  religious  meditativeness,  it  re- 
minds one  more  of  Mr.  Paine's  favourite  master,  Bach. 
The  choral,  like  the  one  in  the  first  part  and  the  one 
which  follows  the  scene  of  Pentecost,  is  taken  from  the 
Lutheran  Choral  Book,  and  arranged  with  original  har- 
mony and  instrumentation,  in  accordance  with  the  cus- 
tom of  Bach,  Mendelssohn,  and  other  composers,  "of 
introducing  into  their  sacred  compositions  the  old  popu- 
lar choral  melodies  which  are  the  peculiar  offspring  of  a 
religious  age."  Thus  the  noblest  choral  ever  written, 
the  "  Sleepers,  wake,"  in  "  St.  Paul,"  was  composed  in 
1604  by  Praetorius,  the  harmonization  and  accompani- 
ment only  being  the  work  of  Mendelssohn. 

In  "  St.  Peter,"  as  in  "  Elijah,"  the  second  part,  while 
forming  the  true  musical  climax  of  the  oratorio,  admits 
of  a  briefer  description  than  the  first  part.  The  wave  of 
emotion  answering  to  the  sensuously  dramatic  element 
having  partly  spent  itself,  the  wave  of  lyric  emotion 
gathers  fresh  strength,  and  one  feels  that  one  has 
reached  the  height  of  spiritual  exaltation,  while,  never- 


PAINE'S  "ST.   PETER." 


2/1 


theless,  there  is  not  so  much  which  one  can  describe  to 
others  who  may  not  happen  to  have  gone  through  with 
the  same  experience.  Something  of  the  same  feeling 
one  gets  in  studying  Dante's  "  Paradiso,"  after  finishing 
the  preceding  divisions  of  his  poem :  there  is  less  which 
can  be  pictured  to  the  eye  of  sense,  or  left  to  be  sup- 
plied by  the  concrete  imagination.  Nevertheless,  in  the 
scene  of  Pentecost,  which  follows  that  of  the  Ascension, 
there  is  no  lack  of  dramatic  vividness.  Indeed,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  work  more  striking  than  the  orchestra- 
tion of  the  introductory  tenor  recitative,  the  mysterious 
chorus,  "  The  voice  of  the  Lord  divideth  the  flames  of 
fire,"  or  the  amazed  query  which  follows,  "  Behold,  are 
not  all  these  who  speak  Galileans  ?  and  how  is  it  that 
we  every  one  hear  them  in  our  own  tongue  wherein  we 
were  born  ? "  We  have  heard  the  opinion  expressed 
that  Mr.  Paine's  oratorio  must  be  lacking  in  originality, 
since  it  suggests  such  strong  reminiscences  of  "  St.  Paul." 
Now,  this  suggestion,  it  seems  to  us,  is  due  partly  to 
the  similarity  of  the  subjects,  independently  of  any  like- 
ness in  the  modes  of  treatment,  and  partly,  perhaps,  to 
the  fact  that  Mr.  Paine,  as  well  as  Mendelssohn,  has 
been  a  devoted  student  of  Bach,  whose  characteristics 
are  so  strong  that  they  may  well  have  left  their  mark 
Tipon  the  works  of  both  composers.  But  especially  it 
would  seem  that  there  is  some  real,  though  very  general 
resemblance  between  this  colloquial  chorus,  "  Behold," 
etc.,  and  some  choruses  in  "  St.  Paul,"  as,  for  example, 
Nos.  29  and  36-38.  In  the  same  way  the  scene  in  the 
high-priest's  hall  might  distantly  suggest  either  of  these 
passages,  or  others  in  "  Elijah."  These  resemblances, 
however,  are  very  superficial,  pertaining  not  to  the  musi- 
cal but  to  the  dramatic  treatment  of  situations  which  are 
generically  similar  in  so  far,  and  only  i-n  so  far,  as  they 


2/2 


PAINE "S  "ST.   PETER." 


represent  conversational  passages  between  an  apostle  or 
prophet  and  an  ignorant  multitude,  whether  amazed  or 
hostile,  under  the  sway  of  violent  excitement.  As  re- 
gards the  musical  elaboration  of  these  terse  and  striking 
alternations  of  chorus  and  recitative,  its  originality  can 
be  questioned  only  after  we  have  decided  to  refer  all 
originality  on  such  matters  to  Bach,  or,  indeed,  even  be- 
hind him,  into  the  Middle  Ages. 

After  the  preaching  of  Peter,  and  the  sweet  contralto 
aria,  "  As  for  man,  his  days  are  as  grass,"  the  culmina- 
tion of  this  scene  comes  in  the  D-major  chorus,  "  This 
is  the  witness  of  God."  "What  follows,  beginning  with 
the  choral,  "  Praise  to  the  Father,"  is  to  be  regarded 
as  an  epilogue  or  peroration  to  the  whole  work.  It  is 
in  accordance  with  a  sound  tradition  that  the  grand  sa- 
cred drama  of  an  oratorio  should  conclude  with  a  lyric 
outburst  of  thanksgiving,  a  psalm  of  praise  to  the  Giver 
of  every  good  arid  perfect  gift.  Thus,  after  Peter's  la- 
bours are  ended  in  the  aria,  "Now  as  ye  were  redeemed," 
in  which  the  twelve  disciples  and  the  full  chorus  join,  a 
duet  for  tenor  and  soprano,  "  Sing  unto  God,"  brings  us 
to  the  grand  final  chorus  in  C  major,  "  Great  and  marvel- 
lous are  thy  works,  Lord  God  Almighty." 

The  cadence  of  this  concluding  chorus  reminds  us 
that  one  of  the  noteworthy  points  in  the  oratorio  is  the 
character  of  its  cadences.  The  cadence  prepared  by  the 
^  chord,  now  become  so  hackneyed  from  its  perpetual 
and  wearisome  repetition  in  popular  church  music,  seems 
to  be  especially  disliked  by  Mr.  Paine,  as  it  occurs  but 
once  or  twice  in  the  course  of  the  work.  In  the  great 
choruses  the  cadence  is  usually  reached  either  by  a 
pedal  on  the  tonic,  as  in  the  chorus,  "  Awake,  thou  that 
sleepest,"  or  by  a  pedal  on  the  dominant  culminating  in 
a  chord  of  the  major  ninth,  as  in  the  final  chorus ;  or 


PAINE "S  "ST.   PETER." 

there  is  a  plagal  cadence,  as  in  the  first  chorus  of  the 
second  part ;  or,  if  the  £  chord  is  introduced,  as  it  is  in 
the  chorus,  "  He  that  overcoineth,"  its  ordinary  effect  is 
covered  and  obscured  by  the  movement  of  the  divided 
sopranos.  We  do  not  remember  noticing  anywhere  such 
a  decided  use  of  the  |  chord  as  is  made,  for  example,  by 
Mendelssohn,  in  "  Thanks  be  to  God,"  or  in  the  final 
chorus  of  "  St.  Paul."  Perhaps  if  we  were  to  confess  our 
lingering  fondness  for  the  cadence  prepared  by  the  £ 
chord,  when  not  too  frequently  introduced,  it  might  only 
show  that  we  retain  a  liking  for  New  England  "  psalin- 
tunes";  but  it  does  seem  to  us  that  a  sense  of  final  re- 
pose, of  entire  cessation  of  movement,  is  more  effectually 
secured  by  this  cadence  than  by  any  other.  Yet  while 
the  |  cadence  most  completely  expresses  finality  and 
rest,  it  would  seem  that  the  plagal  and  other  cadences 
above  enumerated  as  preferred  by  Mr.  Paine  have  a  cer- 
tain sort  of  superiority  by  reason  of  the  very  incom- 
pleteness with  which  they  express  finality.  There  is 
no  sense  of  finality  whatever  about  the  Phrygian  ca- 
dence ;  it  leaves  the  mind  occupied  with  the  feeling  of 
a  boundless  region  beyond,  into  which  one  would  fain 
penetrate ;  and  for  this  reason  it  has,  in  sacred  music,  a 
great  value.  Something  of  the  same  feeling,  too,  at- 
taches to  those  cadences  in  which  an  unexpected  major 
third  usurps  the  place  of  the  minor  which  the  ear  was 
expecting,  as  in  the  "  Incarnatus  "  of  Mozart's  "  Twelfth 
Mass,"  or  in  Bach's  sublime  "Prelude,"  Part  I.,  No.  22  of 
the  "  Well-  tempered  Clavichord."  In  a  less  degree,  an 
analogous  effect  was  produced  upon  us  by  the  cadence 
with  a  pedal  on  the  tonic  in  the  choruses,  "  The  Church 
is  built,"  and  "Awake,  thou  that  sleepest."  On  these 
considerations  it  may  become  intelligible  that  to  some 
hearers  Mr.  Paine's  cadences  have  seemed  unsatisfac- 
12*  K 


2/4 


PAINE "S  "ST.    PETER." 


tory,  their  ears  having  missed  the  positive  categorical 
assertion  of  finality  which  the  f  cadence  alone  can  give. 
To  go  further  into  this  subject  would  take  us  far  beyond 
our  limits. 

The  pleasant  little  town  of  Portland  has  reason  to 
congratulate  itself,  first,  on  being  the  birthplace  of  such 
a  composer  as  Mr.  Paine ;  secondly,  on  having  been  the 
place  where  the  first  great  work  of  America  in  the  do- 
main of  music  was  brought  out ;  and  thirdly,  on  pos- 
sessing what  is  probably  the  most  thoroughly  disciplined 
choral  society  in  this  country.  Our  New  York  friends, 
after  their  recent  experiences,  will  perhaps  be  slow  to 
believe  us  when  we  say  that  the  Portland  choir  sang 
this  new  work  even  better,  in  many  respects,  than  the 
Handel  and  Haydn  Society  sing  the  old  and  familiar 
"  Elijah" ;  but  it  is  true.  In  their  command  of  the  pianis- 
simo and  the  gradual  crescendo,  and  in  the  precision  of 
their  attack,  the  Portland  singers  can  easily  teach  the 
Handel  and  Haydn  a  quarter's  lessons.  And,  besides 
all  this,  they  know  how  to  preserve  their  equanimity 
under  the  gravest  persecutions  of  the  orchestra;  keep- 
ing the  even  tenour  of  their  way  where  a  less  disciplined 
choir,  incited  by  the  excessive  blare  of  the  trombones 
and  the  undue  scraping  of  the  second  violins,  would  be 
likely  to  lose  its  presence  of  mind  and  break  out  into 
an  untimely  fortissimo. 

No  doubt  it  is  easier  to  achieve  perfect  chorus-singing 
with  a  choir  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  voices  than 
with  a  choir  of  six  hundred.  But  this  diminutive  size, 
which  was  an  advantage  so  far  as  concerned  the  techni- 
cal excellence  of  the  Portland  choir,  was  decidedly  a 
disadvantage  so  far  as  concerned  the  proper  rendering 
of  the  more  massive  choruses  in  "  St.  Peter."  All  the 
greatest  choruses  —  such  as  Nos.  1,  8,  19,  20,  28,  35, 


PAINE' S  "ST.   PETER"  2/5 

and  39  —  were  seriously  impaired  in  the  rendering  by 
the  lack  of  massiveness  in  the  voices.  For  example, 
the  grand  chorus,  "Awake,  thou  that  sleepest,"  begins 
with  a  rapid  crescendo  of  strings,  introducing  the  full 
chorus  on  the  word  "  Awake,"  upon  the  dominant  triad 
of  D  major;  and  after  a  couple  of  beats  the  voices  are 
reinforced  by  the  trombones,  producing  the  most  tre- 
mendous effect  possible  in  such  a  crescendo.  Unfortu- 
nately, however,  the  brass  asserted  itself  at  this  point  so 
much  more  emphatically  than  the  voices  that  the  effect 
was  almost  to  disjoin  the  latter  portion  of  the  chord 
from  its  beginning,  and  thus  to  dwarf  the  utterance  of 
the  word  "Awake."  To  us  this  effect  was  very  disa- 
greeable ;  and  it  was  obviously  contrary  to  the  effect  in- 
tended by  the  composer.  But  with  a  weight  of  four  or 
five  hundred  voices,  the  effect  would  be  entirely  differ- 
ent. Instead  of  entering  upon  the  scene  as  intruders, 
the  mighty  trombones  would  only  serve  to  swell  and 
enrich  the  ponderous  chord  which  opens  this  noble  cho- 
rus. Given  greater  weight  only,  and  the  performance 
of  the  admirable  Portland  choir  would  have  left  nothing 
to  be  desired. 

We  cannot  speak  with  so  much  satisfaction  of  the 
performance  of  the  orchestra.  The  instrumentation  of 
"  St.  Peter"  is  remarkably  fine.  But  this  instrumentation 
was  rather  clumsily  rendered  by  the  orchestra,  whose 
doings  constituted  the  least  enjoyable  part  of  the  per- 
formance. There  was  too  much  blare  of  brass,  whine 
of  hautboy,  and  scraping  of  strings.  But  in  condonation 
of  this  serious  defect,  one  must  admit  that  the  requisite 
amount  of  rehearsal  is  out  of  the  question  when  one's 
choir  is  in  Portland  and  one's  orchestra  in  Boston ;  be- 
sides which  the  parts  had  been  inaccurately  copied. 
For  a  moment,  at  the  beginning  of  the  orchestral  la- 


276  PAINE'S   "ST.   PETER." 

ment,  there  was  risk  of  disaster,  the  wind  instruments 
failing  to  come  in  at  the  right  time,  when  Mr.  Paine, 
with  fortunate  presence  of  mind,  stopped  the  players, 
and  the  movement  was  begun  over  again, —  the  whole 
occurring  so  quickly  and  quietly  as  hardly  to  attract 
attention. 

In  conclusion  we  would  say  a  few  words  suggested 
by  a  recent  critical  notice  of  Mr.  Paine's  work  in  the 
"  Nation."  While  acknowledging  the  importance  of  the 
publication  of  this  oratorio,  as  an  event  in  the  art-his- 
tory of  America,  the  writer  betrays  manifest  disappoint- 
ment that  this  work  should  not  rather  have  been  a 
symphony,*  and  thus  have  belonged  to  what  he  calls 
the  "  domain  of  absolute  music."  Now  with  regard  to 
the  assumption  that  the  oratorio  is  not  so  high  a  form 
of  music  as  the  symphony,  or,  in  other  words,  that 
vocal  music  in  general  is  artistically  inferior  to  instru- 
mental music,  we  may  observe,  first,  that  Ambros  and 
Dommer  —  two  of  the  most  profound  musical  critics 
now  living  —  do  not  sustain  it.  It  is  Beauquier,  we 
think,  who  suggests  that  instrumental  music  should 
rank  above  vocal,  because  it  is  "  pure  music,"  bereft  of 
the  fictitious  aids  of  language  and  of  the  emotional 
associations  which  are  grouped  about  the  peculiar  tim- 
bre of  the  human  voice,  f  At  first  the  suggestion  seems 
plausible ;  but  on  analogous  grounds  we  might  set  the 
piano  above  the  orchestra,  because  the  piano  gives  us 
pure  harmony  and  counterpoint,  without  the  adven- 
titious aid  of  variety  in  timbre.  And  it  is  indeed  true 

*  Now  within  two  years,  Mr.  Paine's  C-minor  symphony  has  fol- 
lowed the  completion  of  his  oratorio. 

t  These  peculiar  associations  are  no  doubt  what  is  chiefly  enjoyed  in 
music,  antecedent  to  a  properly  musical  culture.  Persons  of  slight 
acquaintance  with  music  invariably  prefer  the  voice  to  the  piano. 


PAINE'S  "ST.   PETER." 

that,  for  some  such  reason  as  this,  musicians  delight  in 
piano-sonatas,  which  are  above  all  things  tedious  and 
unintelligible  to  the  mind  untrained  in  music.  Never- 
theless, in  spite  of  its  great  and  peculiar  prerogatives,  it 
would  be  absurd  to  prefer  the  piano  to  the  orchestra ; 
and  there  is  a  kindred  absurdity  involved  in  setting  the 
orchestra  above  that  mighty  union  of  orchestra,  organ, 
and  voices  which  we  get  in  the  oratorio.  When  the 
reason  alleged  for  ranking  the  symphony  above  the  ora- 
torio leads  us  likewise  to  rank  the  sonata  above  the 
symphony,  we  seem  to  have  reached  a  redudio  ad  ab- 
surdum. 

Rightly  considered,  the  question  between  vocal  and 
instrumental  music  amounts  to  this,  What  does  music 
express  ?  This  is  a  great  psychological  question,  and 
we  have  not  now  the  space  or  the  leisure  requisite  for 
discussing  it,  even  in  the  most  summary  way.  We  wrill 
say,  however,  that  we  do  not  see  how  music  can  in  any 
way  express  ideas,  or  anything  but  moods  or  emotional 
states  to  which  the  ideas  given  in  language  may  add 
determination  and  precision.  The  pure  symphony  gives 
utterance  to  moods,  and  will  be  a  satisfactory  work  of  art 
or  not,  according  as  the  composer  has  been  actuated  by 
a  legitimate  sequence  of  emotional  states,  like  Beethoven, 
or  by  a  desire  to  produce  novel  and  startling  effects, 
like  Liszt.  But  the  danger  in  purely  instrumental  music 
is  that  it  may  run  riot  in  the  extravagant  utterance  of 
emotional  states  which  are  not  properly  concatenated  by 
any  normal  sequence  of  ideas  associated  with  them. 
This  is  sometimes  exemplified  in  the  most  modern  in- 
strumental music. 

Now,  as  in  real  life  our  sequent  clusters  of  emotional 
states  are  in  general  determined  by  their  association  with 
our  sequent  groups  of  intellectual  ideas,  it  would  seem 


2;8  PAINE'S  "ST.   PETER." 

that  music,  regarded  as  an  exponent  of  psychical  life, 
reaches  its  fullest  expressiveness  when  the  sequence  of 
the  moods  which  it  incarnates  in  sound  is  determined 
by  some  sequence  of  ideas,  such  as  is  furnished  by  the 
words  of  a  libretto.  Not  that  the  words  should  have 
predominance  over  the  music,  or  even  coequal  sway 
with  it,  but  that  they  should  serve  to  give  direction  to 
the  succession  of  feelings  expressed  by  the  music. 
"  Lift  up  your  heads "  and  "  Hallelujah "  do  not  owe 
their  glory  to  the  text,  but  to  that  tremendous  energy 
of  rhythmic  and  contrapuntal  progression  which  the  text 
serves  to  concentrate  and  justify.  When  precision  and 
definiteness  of  direction  are  thus  added  to  the  powerful 
physical  means  of  expression  which  we  get  in  the  com- 
bination of  chorus,  orchestra,  and  organ,  we  have  at- 
tained the  greatest  sureness  as  well  as  the  greatest 
wealth  of  musical  expressiveness.  And  thus  we  may 
see  the  reasonableness  of  Dominer's  opinion  that  in 
order  to  restrain  instrumental  music  from  ruining  itself 
by  meaningless  extravagance,  it  is  desirable  that  there 
should  be  a  renaissance  of  vocal  music,  such  as  it  was 
in  the  golden  age  of  Palestrina  and  Orlando  Lasso. 

We  are  not  inclined  to  deny  that  in  structural  beauty 
—  in  the  symmetrical  disposition  and  elaboration  of  mu- 
sical themes  —  the  symphony  has  the  advantage.  The 
words,  which  in  the  oratorio  serve  to  give  definite  di- 
rection to  the  currents  of  emotion,  may  also  sometimes 
hamper  the  free  development  of  the  pure  musical  con- 
ception, just  as  in  psychical  life  the  obtrusive  entrance 
of  ideas  linked  by  association  may  hinder  the  full 
fruition  of  some  emotional  state.  Nevertheless,  in  spite 
of  this  possible  drawback,  it  may  bs  doubted  if  the 
higher  forms  of  polyphonic  composition  fall  so  very 
far  short  of  the  symphony  in  capability  of  giving  full 


PAINE' S   "ST.    PETER."  2?O 

elaboration  to  the  musical  idea.  The  practical  testi- 
mony of  Beethoven,  in  his  Ninth  Symphony,  is  de- 
cidedly adverse  to  any  such  supposition. 

But  to  pursue  this  interesting  question  would  carry 
us  far  beyond  our  limits.     Whatever  may  be  the  de- 
cision as  to  the  respective  claims  of  vocal  and  instru- 
mental music,  we  have  every  reason  for  welcoming  the 
appearance,  in  our  own  country,  of  an  original  work 
in  the  highest  form  of  vocal  music.     It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  we  shall  often  have  the  opportunity  to  "  hear  with 
our  ears"  this  interesting  work;  for  as  a  rule  great 
musical  compositions  are  peculiarly  unfortunate  among 
works  of  art,  in  being  known  at  first  hand  by  compara- 
tively few  persons.     In  this  way  is  rendered  possible 
that  pretentious  kind  of  dilettante  criticism  which  is  so 
common  in  musical  matters,  and  which  is  often  posi- 
tively injurious,  as  substituting  a  factitious  public  opin- 
ion for  one  that  is  genuine.     We  hope  that  the  favour 
with  which  the  new  oratorio  has  already  been  received 
will  encourage  the  author  to  pursue  the  enviable  career 
upon  which  he  has  entered.     Even  restricting  ourselves 
to  vocal  music,  there  is  still  a  broad  field  left  open  for 
original  work.     The  secular  cantata  —  attempted  in  re- 
cent times  by  Schumann,  as  well  as  by  English  com- 
posers of  smaller  calibre  —  is  a  very  high  form  of  vocal 
music ;  and  if  founded  on  an  adequate  libretto,  dealing 
with   some   supremely  grand   or   tragical   situation,  is 
capable  of  being  carried  to  an  unprecedented  height 
of  musical  elaboration.     Here   is  an   opportunity  for 
original  achievement,  of  which  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
some  gifted  and  well-trained  composer,  like  the  author 
of  "  St.  Peter,"  may  find  it  worth  while  to  avail  himself. 

June,  1873. 


XIII. 

A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART* 

WE  are  glad  of  a  chance  to  introduce  to  our  readers 
one  of  the  works  of  a  great  writer.  Though 
not  yet  "j*  widely  known  in  this  country,  M.  Taine  has 
obtained  a  very  high  reputation  in  Europe.  He  is  still 
quite  a  young  man,  but  is  nevertheless  the  author  of 
nineteen  goodly  volumes,  witty,  acute,  and  learned ;  and 
already  he  is  often  ranked  with  Eenan,  Littre,  and 
Sainte-Beuve,  the  greatest  living  French  writers. 

Hippolyte  Adolphe  Taine  was  born  at  Vouziers, 
among  the  grand  forests  of  Ardennes,  in  1828,  and  is 
therefore  about  forty  years  old.  His  family  was  simple 
in  habits  and  tastes,  and  entertained  a  steadfast  belief 
in  culture,  along  with  the  possession  of  a  fair  amount 
of  it.  His  grandfather  was  sub-prefect  at  Rocroi,  in 
1814  and  1815,  under  the  first  restoration  of  the  Bour- 
bons. His  father,  a  lawyer  by  profession,  was  the  first 
instructor  of  his  son,  and  taught  him  Latin,  and  from 
an  uncle,  who  had  been  in  America,  he  learned  English, 
while  still  a  mere  child.  Having  gone  to  Paris  with 
his  mother  in  1842,  he  began  his  studies  at  the  College 
Bourbon  and  in  1848  was  promoted  to  the  ficole  Nor- 
male.  Weiss,  About,  and  Prevost  -  Paradol  were  his 
contemporaries  at  this  institution.  At  that  time  great 

*  The  Philosophy  of  Art.     By  H.  Taine.     New  York  :  Leypoldt  & 
Holt.  1867. 
t  That  is,  in  1868. 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART.  28l 

liberty  was  enjoyed  in  regard  to  the  order  and  the 
details  of  the  exercises ;  so  that  Taine,  with  his  sur- 
prising rapidity,  would  do  in  one  week  the  work  laid 
out  for  a  month,  and  would  spend  the  remainder  of  the 
time  in  private  reading.  In  1851  he  left  college,  and 
after  two  or  three  unsatisfactory  attempts  at  teaching, 
in  Paris  and  in  the  provinces,  he  settled  down  at  Paris 
as  a  private  student.  He  gave  himself  the  very  best 
elementary  preparation  which  a  literary  man  can  have, — 
a  thorough  course  in  mathematics  and  the  physical 
sciences.  His  studies  in  anatomy  and  physiology  were 
especially  elaborate  and  minute.  He  attended  the 
School  of  Medicine  as  regularly  as  if  he  expected  to 
make  his  daily  bread  in  the  profession.  In  this  way, 
when  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  began  to  write  books, 
M.  Taine  was  a  really  educated  man ;  and  his  books  show 
it.  The  day  is  past  when  a  man  could  write  securely, 
with  a  knowledge  of  the  classics  alone.  We  doubt  if 
a  philosophical  critic  is  perfectly  educated  for  his  task, 
unless  he  can  read,  for  instance,  Donaldson's  "  New  Cra- 
tylus  "  on  the  one  hand,  and  Eokitansky's  "  Pathologi- 
cal Anatomy "  on  the  other,  for  the  sheer  pleasure  of 
the  thing.  At  any  rate,  it  was  an  education  of  this 
sort  which  M.  Taine,  at  the  outset  of  his  literary  career, 
had  secured.  By  this  solid  discipline  of  mathematics, 
chemistry,  and  medicine,  M.  Taine  became  that  which 
above  all  things  he  now  is,  —  a  man  possessed  of  a 
central  philosophy,  of  an  exact,  categorical,  well-defined 
system,  which  accompanies  and  supports  him  in  his 
most  distant  literary  excursions.  He  does  not  keep 
throwing  out  ideas  at  random,  like  too  many  literary 
critics,  but  attaches  all  his  criticisms  to  a  common 
fundamental  principle ;  in  short,  he  is  not  a  dilettante, 
but  a  savant. 


282  ^  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

His  treatise  on  La  Fontaine,  in  1853,  attracted  much 
attention,  both  the  style  and  the  matter  being  sin- 
gularly fresh  and  original.  He  has  since  republished 
it,  with  alterations  which  serve  to  show  that  he  can  be 
docile  toward  intelligent  criticisms.  About  the  same 
time  he  prepared  for  the  French  Academy  his  work 
upon  the  historian  Livy,  which  was  crowned  in  1855. 
Suffering  then  from  overwork,  he  was  obliged  to  make 
a  short  journey  to  the  Pyrenees,  which  he  has  since  de- 
scribed in  a  charming  little  volume,  illustrated  by  Dors'. 

His  subsequent  works  are  a  treatise  on  the  French 
philosophers  of  the  present  century,  in  which  the  vapid 
charlatanism  of  M.  Cousin  is  satisfactorily  dealt  with ; 
a  history  of  English  literature  in  five  volumes ;  a  hu- 
morous book  on  Paris ;  three  volumes  upon  the  general 
theory  of  art;  and  two  volumes  of  travels  in  Italy; 
besides  a  considerable  collection  of  historical  and  criti- 
cal essays.  We  think  that  several  of  these  works  would 
be  interesting  to  the  American  public,  and  might  prof- 
itably be  translated. 

Some  three  or  four  years  ago,  M.  Taine  was  appointed 
Professor  in  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts,  and  we  suppose 
his  journey  to  Italy  must  have  been  undertaken  partly 
with  a  view  to  qualify  himself  for  his  new  position. 
He  visited  the  four  cities  which  may  be  considered  the 
artistic  centres  of  Italy,  —  Rome,  Naples,  Florence,  and 
Venice,  —  and  a  large  part  of  his  account  of  his  journey 
is  taken  up  with  descriptions  and  criticisms  of  pictures, 
statues,  and  buildings. 

This  is  a  department  of  criticism  which,  we  may  as 
well  frankly  acknowledge,  is  far  better  appreciated  on 
the  continent  of  Europe  than  in  England  or  America. 
Over  the  English  race  there  passed,  about  two  centuries 
ago,  a  deluge  of  Puritanism,  which  for  a  time  almost 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART.  283 

drowned  out  its  artistic  tastes  and  propensities.  The 
Puritan  movement,  in  proportion  to  its  success,  was 
nearly  as  destructive  to  art  in  the  West,  as  Moham- 
medanism had  long  before  been  in  the  East.  In  its 
intense  and  one-sided  regard  for  morality,  Puritanism 
not  only  relegated  the  love  for  beauty  to  an  inferior 
place,  but  contemned  and  spat  upon  it,  as  something 
sinful  and  degrading.  Hence,  the  utter  architectural 
impotence  which  characterizes  the  Americans  and  the 
modern  English ;  and  hence  the  bewildered  ignorant 
way  in  which  we  ordinarily  contemplate  pictures  and 
statues.  For  two  centuries  we  have  been  removed  from 
an  artistic  environment,  and  consequently  can  with  dif- 
ficulty enter  into  the  feelings  of  those  who  have  all  this 
time  been  nurtured  in  love  for  art,  and  belief  in  art  for 
its  own  sake.  These  peculiarities,  as  Mr.  Mill  has  ably 
pointed  out,  have  entered  deep  into  our  ethnic  charac- 
ter. Even  in  pure  morals  there  is  a  radical  difference 
between  the  Englishman  and  the  inhabitant  of  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe.  The  Englishman  follows  virtue  from 
a  sense  of  duty,  the  Frenchman  from  an  emotional  aspi- 
ration toward  the  beautiful.  The  one  admires  a  noble 
action  because  it  is  right,  the  other  because  it  is  attrac- 
tive. And  this  difference  underlies  the  moral  judg- 
ments upon  men  and  events  which  are  to  be  found 
respectively  in  English  and  in  continental  literature. 
By  keeping  it  constantly  in  view,  we  shall  be  enabled 
to  understand  many  things  which  might  otherwise  sur- 
prise us  in  the  writings  of  French  authors. 

We  are  now  slowly  outgrowing  the  extravagances  of 
Puritanism.  It  has  given  us  an  earnestness  and  so- 
briety of  character,  to  which  much  of  our  real  greatness 
is  owing,  both  here  and  in  the  mother  country.  It  has 
made  us  stronger  and  steadier,  but  it  has  at  the  same 


284  A     PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

time  narrowed  us  in  many  respects,  and  rendered  our 
lives  incomplete.  This  incompleteness,  entailed  by  Pu- 
ritanism, we  are  gradually  getting  rid  of;  and  we  are 
learning  to  admire  and  respect  many  things  upon  which 
Puritanism  set  its  mark  of  contempt.  We  are  begin- 
ning, for  instance,  to  recognize  the  transcendent  merits 
of  that  great  civilizing  agency,  the  drama ;  we  no  longer 
think  it  necessary  that  our  temples  for  worshipping  God 
should  be  constructed  like  hideous  barracks ;  we  are 
gradually  permitting  our  choirs  to  discard  the  droning 
and  sentimental  modern  "  psalm-tune  "  for  the  inspiring 
harmonies  of  Beethoven  and  Mozart ;  and  we  admit  the 
classical  picture  and  the  undraped  statue  to  a  high  place 
in  our  esteem.  Yet  with  all  this  it  will  probably  be 
some  time  before  genuine  art  ceases  to  be  an  exotic 
among  us,  and  becomes  a  plant  of  unhindered  native 
growth.  It  will  be  some  time  before  we  cease  to  regard 
pictures  and  statues  as  a  higher  species  of  upholstery, 
and  place  them  in  the  same  category  with  poems  and 
dramas,  duly  reverencing  them  as  authentic  revelations 
of  the  beauty  which  is  to  be  found  in  nature.  It  will 
be  some  time  before  we  realize  that  art  is  a  thing  to  be 
studied,  as  well  as  literature,  and  before  we  can  be 
quite  reconciled  to  the  familiar  way  in  which  a  French- 
man quotes  a  picture  as  we  would  quote  a  poem  or 
novel. 

Artistic  genius,  as  M.  Taine  has  shown,  is  something 
which  will  develop  itself  only  under  peculiar  social  cir- 
cumstances ;  and,  therefore,  if  we  have  not  art,  we  can 
perhaps  only  wait  for  it,  trusting  that  when  the  time 
comes  it  will  arise  among  us.  But  without  originating, 
we  may  at  least  intelligently  appreciate.  The  nature 
of  a  work  of  art,  and  the  mode  in  which  it  is  produced, 
are  subjects  well  worthy  of  careful  study.  Architecture 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 


285 


and  music,  poetry,  painting  and  sculpture,  have  in  times 
past  constituted  a  vast  portion  of  human  activity ;  and 
without  knowing  something  of  the  philosophy  of  art,  we 
need  not  hope  to  understand  thoroughly  the  philosophy 
of  history. 

In  entering  upon  the  study  of  art  in  general,  one  may 
find  many  suggestive  hints  in  the  little  books  of  M. 
Taine,  reprinted  from  the  lectures  which  he  has  been 
delivering  at  the  $cole  des  Beaux  Arts.  The  first,  on 
the  Philosophy  of  Art,  designated  at  the  head  of  this 
paper,  is  already  accessible  to  the  American  reader ;  and 
translations  of  the  others  are  probably  soon  to  follow. 
We  shall  for  the  present  give  a  mere  synopsis  of  M. 
Taine's  general  views. 

And  first  it  must  be  determined  what  a  work  of  art 
is.  Leaving  for  a  while  music  and  architecture  out  of 
consideration,  it  will  be  admitted  that  poetry,  painting, 
and  sculpture  have  one  obvious  character  in  common : 
they  are  arts  of  imitation.  This,  says  Taine,  appears  at 
first  sight  to  be  their  essential  character.  It  would  ap- 
pear that  their  great  object  is  to  imitate  as  closely  as 
possible.  It  is  obvious  that  a  statue  is  intended  to  imi- 
tate a  living  man,  that  a  picture  is  designed  to  represent 
real  persons  in  real  attitudes,  or  the  interior  of  a  house, 
or  a  landscape,  such  as  it  exists  in  nature.  And  it  is  no 
less  clear  that  a  novel  or  drama  endeavours  to  represent 
with  accuracy  real  characters,  actions,  and  words,  giving 
as  precise  and  faithful  an  image  of  them  as  possible. 
And  when  the  imitation  is  incomplete,  we  say  to  the 
painter,  "  Your  people  are  too  largely  proportioned,  and 
the  colour  of  your  trees  is  false  " ;  we  tell  the  sculptor 
that  his  leg  or  arm  is  incorrectly  modelled ;  and  we  say 
to  the  dramatist,  "  Never  has  a  man  felt  or  thought  as 
your  hero  is  supposed  to  have  felt  and  thought." 


286  -4  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

This  truth,  moreover,  is  seen  both  in  the  careers 
of  individual  artists,  and  in  the  general  history  of  art. 
According  to  Taine,  the  life  of  an  artist  may  gen- 
erally be  divided  into  two  parts.  In  the  first  period, 
that  of  natural  growth,  he  studies  nature  anxiously 
and  minutely,  he  keeps  the  objects  themselves  before 
his  eyes,  and  strives  to  represent  them  with  scrupu- 
lous fidelity.  But  when  the  time  for  mental  growth 
ends,  as  it  does  with  every  man,  and  the  crystallization 
of  ideas  and  impressions  commences,  then  the  mind  of 
the  artist  is  no  longer  so  susceptible  to  new  impressions 
from  without.  He  begins  to  nourish  himself  from  his 
own  substance.  He  abandons  the  living  model,  and 
with  recipes  which  he  has  gathered  in  the  course  of  his 
experience,  he  proceeds  to  construct  a  drama  or  novel, 
a  picture  or  statue.  Now,  the  first  period,  says  Taine, 
is  that  of  genuine  art ;  the  second  is  that  of  mannerism. 
Our  author  cites  the  case  of  Michael  Angelo,  a  man  who 
was  one  of  the  most  colossal  embodiments  of  physical 
and  mental  energy  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  In 
Michael  Angelo's  case,  the  period  of  growth,  of  genuine 
art,  may  be  said  to  have  lasted  until  after  his  sixtieth 
year.  But  look,  says  Taine,  at  the  works  which  he  ex- 
ecuted in  his  old  age ;  consider  the  Conversion  of  St. 
Paul,  and  the  Last  Judgment,  painted  when  he  was 
nearly  seventy.  Even  those  who  are  not  connoisseurs 
can  see  that  these  frescos  are  painted  by  rule,  that  the 
artist,  having  stocked  his  memory  with  a  certain  set  of 
forms,  is  making  use  of  them  to  fill  out  his  tableau ; 
that  he  wantonly  multiplies  queer  attitudes  and  in- 
genious foreshortenings ;  that  the  lively  invention,  the 
grand  outburst  of  feeling,  the  perfect  truth,  by  which 
his  earlier  works  are  distinguished,  have  disappeared  ; 
and  that,  if  he  is  still  superior  to  all  others,  he  is 


A   PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART.  2S? 

nevertheless  inferior  to  himself.  The  careers  of  Scott, 
of  Goethe,  and  of  Voltaire  will  furnish  parallel  exam- 
ples. In  every  school  of  art,  too,  the  flourishing  period 
is  followed  by  one  of  decline  ;  and  in  every  case  the  de- 
cline is  due  to  a  failure  to  imitate  the  living  models. 
In  painting,  we  have  the  exaggerated  foreshorteners  and 
muscle-makers  who  copied  Michael  Angelo ;  the  lovers 
of  theatrical  decorations  who  succeeded  Titian  and 
Giorgione  and  the  degenerate  boudoir-painters  who  fol- 
lowed Claude  and  Poussiu.  In  literature,  we  have  the 
versifiers,  epigrammatists,  and  rhetors  of  the  Latin  deca- 
dence ;  the  sensual  and  declamatory  dramatists  who 
represent  the  last  stages  of  old  English  comedy ;  and  the 
makers  of  sonnets  and  madrigals,  or  conceited  euphe- 
mists  of  the  Gongora  school,  in  the  decline  of  Italian  and 
Spanish  poetry.  Briefly  it  may  be  said,  that  the  mas- 
ters copy  nature  and  the  pupils  copy  the  masters.  In 
this  way  are  explained  the  constantly  recurring  phe- 
nomena of  decline  in  art,  and  thus,  also,  it  is  seen  that 
art  is  perfect  in  proportion  as  it  successfully  imitates 
nature. 

But  we  are  not  to  conclude  that  absolute  imitation  is 
the  sole  and  entire  object  of  art.  "Were  this  the  case, 
the  finest  works  would  be  those  which  most  minutely 
correspond  to  their  external  prototypes.  In  sculpture,  a 
mould  taken  from  the  living  features  is  that  which  gives 
the  most  faithful  representation  of  the  model;  but  a 
well-moulded  bust  is  far  from  being  equal  to  a  good 
statue.  Photography  is  in  many  respects  more  accurate 
than  painting ;  but  no  one  would  rank  a  photograph, 
however  exquisitely  executed,  with  an  original  picture. 
And  finally,  if  exact  imitation  were  the  supreme  object 
of  art,  the  best  tragedy,  the  best  comedy,  and  the  best 
drama  would  be  a  stenographic  report  of  the  proceed- 


288  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

ings  in  a  court  of  justice,  in  a  family  gathering,  in  a 
popular  meeting,  in  the  Rump  Congress.  Even  the 
works  of  artists  are  not  rated  in  proportion  to  their  mi- 
nute exactness.  Neither  in  painting  nor  in  any  other 
art  do  we  give  the  precedence  to  that  which  deceives 
the  eye  simply.  Every  one  remembers  how  Zeuxis  was 
said  to  have  painted  grapes  so  faithfully  that  the  birds 
came  and  pecked  at  them ;  and  how,  Parrhasios,  his 
rival,  surpassed  even  this  feat  by  painting  a  curtain  so 
natural  in  its  appearance  that  Zeuxis  asked  him  to  pull 
it  aside  and  show  the  picture  behind  it.  All  this  is  not 
art,  but  mere  knack  and  trickery.  Perhaps  no  painter 
was  ever  so  minute  as  Denner.  It  used  to  take  him 
four  years  to  make  one  portrait.  He  would  omit  noth- 
ing, —  neither  the  bluish  lines  made  by  the  veins  under 
the  skin,  nor  the  little  black  points  scattered  over  the 
nose,  nor  the  bright  spots  in  the  eye  where  neighbour- 
ing objects  are  reflected;  the  head  seems  to  start  out 
from  the  canvas,  it  is  so  like  flesh  and  blood.  Yet  who 
cares  for  Denner's  portraits  ?  And  who  would  not  give 
ten  times  as  much  for  one  which  Van  Dyck  or  Tinto- 
retto might  have  painted  in  a  few  hours  ?  So  in  the 
churches  of  Naples  and  Spain  we  find  statues  coloured 
and  draped,  saints  clothed  in  real  coats,  with  their  skin 
yellow  and  bloodless,  their  hands  bleeding,  and  their 
feet  bruised ;  and  beside  them  Madonnas  in  royal  habili- 
ments, in  gala  dresses  of  lustrous  silk,  adorned  with  dia- 
dems, precious  necklaces,  bright  ribbons,  and  elegant 
laces,  with  their  cheeks  rosy,  their  eyes  brilliant,  their 
eyelashes  sweeping.  And  by  this  excess  of  literal  imi- 
tation, there  is  awakened  a  feeling,  not  of  pleasure,  but 
always  of  repugnance,  often  of  disgust,  and  sometimes 
of  horror.  So  in  literature,  the  ancient  Greek  theatre, 
and  the  best  Spanish  and  English  dramatists,  alter  on 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART.  289 

purpose  the  natural  current  of  human  speech,  and  make 
their  characters  talk  under  all  the  restraints  of  rhyme  and 
rhythm.  But  we  pronounce  this  departure  from  literal 
truth  a  merit  and  not  a  defect.  "We  consider  Goethe's 
second  "  Iphigenie,"  written  in  verse,  far  preferable  to 
the  first  one  written  in  prose;  nay,  it  is  the  rhythm 
or  metre  itself  which  communicates  to  the  work  its 
incomparable  beauty.  In  a  review  of  Longfellow's 
"  Dante,"  published  last  year,  we  argued  this  very  point 
in  one  of  its  special  applications ;  the  artist  must  copy 
his  original,  but  he  must  not  copy  it  too  literally. 

What  then  must  he  copy  ?  He  must  copy,  says 
Taiue,  the  mutual  relations  and  interdependences  of 
the  parts  of  his  model.  And  more  than  this,  he  must 
render  the  essential  characteristic  of  the  object  —  that 
characteristic  upon  which  all  the  minor  qualities  depend 
—  as  salient  and  conspicuous  as  possible.  He  must  put 
into  the  background  the  traits  which  conceal  it,  and 
bring  into  the  foreground  the  traits  which  manifest  it. 
If  he  is  sculpturing  a  group  like  the  Laocoon,  he  must 
strike  upon  the  supreme  moment,  that  in  which  the 
whole  tragedy  reveals  itself,  and  he  must  pass  over  those 
insignificant  details  of  position  and  movement  which 
serve  only  to  distract  our  attention  and  weaken  our 
emotions  by  dividing  them.  If  he  is  writing  a  drama, 
he  must  not  attempt  to  give  us  the  complete  biography 
of  his  character ;  he  must  depict  only  those  situations 
which  stand  in  direct  subordination  to  the  grand  climax 
or  denouement.  As  a  final  result,  therefore.  Taine  con- 
cludes that  a  work  of  art  is  a  concrete  representation  of 
the  relations  existing  between  the  parts  of  an  object, 
with  the  intent  to  bring  the  essential  or  dominating 
character  thereof  into  prominence. 

We  should  overrun  our  limits  if  we  were  to  follow 

13  8 


290  ^   PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

out  the  admirable  discussion  in  which  M.  Taine  extends 
this  definition  to  architecture  and  music.  These  closely 
allied  arts  are  distinguished  from  poetry,  painting,  and 
sculpture,  by  appealing  far  less  directly  to  the  intelli- 
gence, and  far  more  exclusively  to  the  emotions.  Yet 
these  arts  likewise  aim,  by  bringing  into  prominence 
certain  relations  of  symmetry  in  form  as  perceived  by 
the  eye,  or  in  aerial  vibrations  as  perceived  by  the  ear, 
to  excite  in  us  the  states  of  feeling  with  which  these 
species  of  symmetry  are  by  subtle  laws  of  association 
connected.  They,  too,  imitate,  not  literally,  but  under 
the  guidance  of  a  predominating  sentiment  or  emotion, 
relations  which  really  exist  among  the  phenomena  of 
nature.  And  here,  too,  we  estimate  excellence,  not  in 
proportion  to  the  direct,  but  to  the  indirect  imitation. 
A  Gothic  cathedral  is  not,  as  has  been  supposed,  directly 
imitated  from  the  towering  vegetation  of  Northern  for- 
ests ;  but  it  may  well  be  the  expression  of  the  dim  sen- 
timent of  an  unseen,  all-pervading  Power,  generated  by 
centuries  of  primeval  life  amid  such  forests.  So  the 
sounds  which  in  a  symphony  of  Beethoven  are  woven 
into  a  web  of  such  amazing  complexity  may  exist  in 
different  combinations  in  nature ;  but  when  a  musician 
steps  out  of  his  way  to  imitate  the  crowing  of  cocks  or 
the  roar  of  the  tempest,  we  regard  his  achievement 
merely  as  a  graceful  conceit.  Art  is,  therefore,  an  imi- 
tation of  nature ;  but  it  is  an  intellectual  and  not  a 
mechanical  imitation ;  and  the  performances  of  the 
camera  and  the  music-box  are  not  to  be  classed  with 
those  of  the  violinist's  bow  or  the  sculptor's  chisel. 

And  lastly,  in  distinguishing  art  from  science,  Taine 
remarks,  that  in  disengaging  from  their  complexity  the 
causes  which  are  at  work  in  nature,  and  the  funda- 
mental laws  according  to  which  they  work,  science  de- 


A   PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

scribes  them  in  abstract  formulas  conveyed  in  technical 
language.  But  art  reveals  these  operative  causes  and 
these  dominant  laws,  not  in  arid  definitions,  inaccessible 
to  most  people,  intelligible  only  to  specially  instructed 
men,  but  in  a  concrete  symbol,  addressing  itself  not  only 
to  the  understanding,  but  still  more  to  the  sentiments 
of  the  ordinary  man.  Art  has,  therefore,  this  peculiar- 
ity, that  it  is  at  once  elevated  and  popular,  that  it  mani- 
fests that  which  is  often  most  recondite,  and  that  it 
manifests  it  to  all. 

Having  determined  what  a  work  of  art  is,  our  author 
goes  on  to  study  the  social  conditions  under  which 
works  of  art  are  produced ;  and  he  concludes  that  the 
general  character  of  a  work  of  art  is  determined  by  the 
state  of  intellect  and  morals  in  the  society  in  which  it 
is  executed.  There  is,  in  fact,  a  sort  of  moral  tempera- 
ture which  acts  upon  mental  development  much  as 
physical  temperature  acts  upon  organic  development. 
The  condition  of  society  does  not  produce  the  artist's 
talent;  but  it  assists  or  checks  its  efforts  to  display 
itself ;  it  decides  whether  or  not  it  shall  be  successful. 
And  it  exerts  a  "natural  selection"  between  different 
kinds  of  talents,  stimulating  some  and  starving  others. 
To  make  this  perfectly  clear,  we  will  cite  at  some  length 
Taine's  brilliant  illustration. 

The  case  chosen  for  illustration  is  a  very  simple  one, — 
that  of  a  state  of  society  in  which  one  of  the  predomi- 
nant feelings  is  melancholy.  This  is  not  an  arbitrary 
supposition,  for  such  a  time  has  occurred  more  than 
once  in  human  history;  in  Asia,  in  the  sixth  century 
before  Christ,  and  especially  in  Europe,  from  the  fourth 
to  the  tenth  centuries  of  our  era.  To  produce  such  a 
state  of  feeling,  five  or  six  generations  of  decadence, 
accompanied  with  diminution  of  population,  foreign  in- 


292 


A   PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 


vasions,  famines,  pestilences,  and  increasing  difficulty  in 
procuring  the  necessaries  of  life,  are  amply  sufficient. 
It  then  happens  that  men  lose  courage  and  hope,  and 
consider  life  an  evil.  Now,  admitting  that  among  the 
artists  who  live  in  such  a  time,  there  are  likely  to  be 
the  same  relative  numbers  of  melancholy,  joyous,  or  in- 
different temperaments  as  at  other  times,  let  us  see  how 
they  will  be  affected  by  reigning  circumstances. 

Let  us  first  remember,  says  Taine,  that  the  evils  which 
depress  the  public  will  also  depress  the  artist.  His 
risks  are  no  less  than  those  of  less  gifted  people.  He  is 
liable  to  suffer  from  plague  or  famine,  to  be  ruined  by 
unfair  taxation  or  conscription,  or  to  see  his  children 
massacred  and  his  wife  led  into  captivity  by  barbarians. 
And  if  these  ills  do  not  reach  him  personally,  he  must 
at  least  behold  those  around  him  affected  by  them.  In 
this  way,  if  he  is  joyous  by  temperament,  he  must  in- 
evitably become  less  joyous ;  if  he  is  melancholy,  he 
must  become  more  melancholy. 

Secondly,  having  been  reared  among  melancholy  con- 
temporaries, his  education  will  have  exerted  upon  him  a 
corresponding  influence.  The  prevailing  religious  doc- 
trine, accommodated  to  the  state  of  affairs,  will  tell  him 
that  the  earth  is  a  place  of  exile,  life  an  evil,  gayety  a 
snare,  and  his  most  profitable  occupation  will  be  to  get 
ready  to  die.  Philosophy,  constructing  its  system  of 
morals  in  conformity  to  the  existing  phenomena  of  deca- 
dence, will  tell  him  that  he  had  better  never  have  been 
born.  Daily  conversation  will  inform  him  of  horrible 
events,  of  the  devastation  of  a  province,  the  sack  of  a 
town  by  the  Goths,  the  oppression  of  the  neighbouring 
peasants  by  the  imperial  tax-collectors,  or  the  civil  war 
that  has  just  burst  out  between  half  a  dozen  pretenders 
to  the  throne.  As  he  travels  about,  he  beholds  signs  of 


A   PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 


293 


mourning  and  despair,  crowds  of  beggars,  people  dying 
of  hunger,  a  broken  bridge  which  no  one  is  mending,  an 
abandoned  suburb  which  is  going  to  ruin,  fields  choked 
with  weeds,  the  blackened  walls  of  burned  houses. 
Such  sights  and  impressions,  repeated  from  childhood 
to  old  age  (and  we  must  remember  that  this  has  actu- 
ally been  the  state  of  things  in  what  are  now  the  fairest 
parts  of  the  globe),  cannot  fail  to  deepen  whatever  ele- 
ments of  melancholy  there  may  be  already  in  the  artist's 
disposition. 

The  operation  of  all  these  causes  will  be  enhanced  by 
that  very  peculiarity  of  the  artist  which  constitutes  his 
talent.  For,  according  to  the  definitions  above  given, 
that  which  makes  him  an  artist  is  his  capacity  for  seiz- 
ing upon  the  essential  characteristics  and  the  salient 
traits  of  surrounding  objects  and  events.  Other  men 
see  things  in  part  fragmentarily ;  he  catches  the  spirit 
of  the  ensemble.  And  in  this  way  he  will  very  likely 
exaggerate  in  his  works  the  general  average  of  contem- 
porary feeling. 

Lastly,  our  author  reminds  us  that  a  man  who  writes 
or  paints  does  not  remain  alone  before  his  easel  or  his 
writing-desk.  He  goes  out,  looks  about  him,  receives 
suggestions  from  friends,  from  rivals,  from  books,  and 
works  of  art  whenever  accessible,  and  hears  the  criti- 
cisms of  the  public  upon  his  own  productions  and  those 
of  his  contemporaries.  In  order  to  succeed,  he  must 
not  only  satisfy  to  some  extent  the  popular  taste,  but  he 
must  feel  that  the  public  is  in  sympathy  with  him.  If 
in  this  period  of  social  decadence  and  gloom  he  endeav- 
ours to  represent  gay,  brilliant,  or  triumphant  ideas,  he 
will  find  himself  left  to  his  own  resources ;  and,  as 
Taine  rightly  says,  the  power  of  an  isolated  man  is 
always  insignificant  His  work  will  be  likely  to  be 


294  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

mediocre.  If  he  attempts  to  write  like  Eabelais  or  paint 
like  Eubens,  he  will  get  neither  assistance  nor  sympathy 
from  a  public  which  prefers  the  pictures  of  Eembrandt, 
the  melodies  of  Chopin,  and  the  poetry  of  Heine. 

Having  thus  explained  his  position  by  this  extreme 
instance,  signified  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  Taine  goes 
on  to  apply  such  general  considerations  to  four  historic 
epochs,  taken  in  all  their  complexity.  He  discusses  the 
aspect  presented  by  art  in  ancient  Greece,  in  the  feudal 
and  Catholic  Middle  Ages,  in  the  centralized  monarchies 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  in  the  scientific,  indus- 
trial democracy  in  which  we  now  live.  Out  of  these 
we  shall  select,  as  perhaps  the  simplest,  the  case  of 
ancient  Greece,  still  following  our  author  closely,  though 
necessarily  omitting  many  interesting  details. 

The  ancient  Greeks,  observes  Taine,  understood  life 
in  a  new  and  original  manner.  Their  energies  were 
neither  absorbed  by  a  great  religious  conception,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Hindus  and  Egyptians,  nor  by  a  vast 
social  organization,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Assyrians  and 
Persians,  nor  by  a  purely  industrial  and  commercial 
regime,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Phrenicians  and  Cartha- 
ginians. Instead  of  a  theocracy  or  a  rigid  system  of 
castes,  instead  of  a  monarchy  with  a  hierarchy  of  civil 
officials,  the  men  of  this  race  invented  a  peculiar  insti- 
tution, the  City,  each  city  giving  rise  to  others  like 
itself,  and  from  colony  to  colony  reproducing  itself  in- 
definitely. A  single  Greek  city,  for  instance,  Miletos, 
produced  three  hundred  other  cities,  colonizing  with 
them  the  entire  coast  of  the  Black  Sea.  Each  city  was 
substantially  self-ruling ;  and  the  idea  of  a  coalescence 
of  several  cities  into  a  nation  was  one  which  the  Greek 
mind  rarely  conceived,  and  never  was  able  to  put  into 
operation. 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 


295 


In  these  cities,  labour  was  for  the  most  part  carried 
on  by  slaves.  In  Athens  there  were  four  or  five  for 
each  citizen,  and  in  places  like  Korinth  and  Aigina  the 
slave  population  is  said  to  have  numbered  four  or  five 
hundred  thousand.  Besides,  the  Greek  citizen  had  little 
need  of  personal  service.  He  lived  out  of  doors,  and, 
like  most  Southern  people,  was  comparatively  abstemious 
in  his  habits.  His  dinners  were  slight,  his  clothing  was 
simple,  his  house  was  scantily  furnished,  being  intended 
chiefly  for  a  den  to  sleep  in. 

Serving  neither  king  nor  priest,  the  citizen  was  free 
and  sovereign  in  his  own  city.  He  elected  his  own 
magistrates,  and  might  himself  serve  as  city -ruler,  as  ju- 
ror, or  as  judge.  Eepresentation  was  unknown.  Legis- 
lation was  carried  on  by  all  the  citizens  assembled  in 
mass.  Therefore  politics  and  war  were  the  sole  or  chief 
employments  of  the  citizen.  War,  indeed,  came  in  for 
no  slight  share  of  his  attention.  For  society  was  not 
so  well  protected  as  in  these  modern  days.  Most  of 
these  Greek  cities,  scattered  over  the  coasts  of  the 
Aigeian,  the  Black  Sea,  and  the  Mediterranean,  were 
surrounded  by  tribes  of  barbarians,  Scythians,  Gauls, 
Spaniards,  and  Africans.  The  citizen  must  therefore 
keep  on  his  guard,  like  the  Englishman  of  to-day  in 
New  Zealand,  or  like  the  inhabitant  of  a  Massachusetts 
town  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Otherwise  Gauls, 
Samnites,  or  Bithynians,  as  savage  as  North  American 
Indians,  would  be  sure  to  encamp  upon  the  blackened 
ruins  of  his  town.  Moreover,  the  Greek  cities  had 
their  quarrels  with  each  other,  and  their  laws  of  war 
were  very  barbaroiis.  A  conquered  city :  was  liable  to 
be  razed  to  the  ground,  its  male  inhabitants  put  to  the 
sword,  its  women  sold  as  slaves.  Under  such  circum- 
stances, according  to  Taine's  happy  expression,  a  citizen 


296 


A   PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 


must  be  a  politician  and  warrior,  on  pain  of  death.  And 
not  only  fear,  but  ambition  also  tended  to  make  him  so. 
For  each  city  strove  to  subject  or  to  humiliate  its  neigh- 
bours, to  acquire  tribute,  or  to  exact  homage  from  its 
rivals.  Thus  the  citizen  passed  his  life  in  the  public 
square,  discussing  alliances,  treaties,  and  constitutions, 
hearing  speeches,  or  speaking  himself,  and  finally  going 
aboard  of  his  ship  to  fight  his  neighbour  Greeks,  or  to 
sail  against  Egypt  or  Persia. 

War  (and  politics  as  subsidiary  to  it)  was  then  the 
chief  pursuit  of  life.  But  as  there  was  no  organized 
industry,  so  there  were  no  machines  of  warfare.  All 
fighting  was  done  hand  to  hand.  Therefore,  the  great 
thing  in  preparing  for  war  was  not  to  transform  the  sol- 
diers into  precisely-acting  automata,  as  in  a  modern 
army,  but  to  make  each  separate  soldier  as  vigorous  and 
active  as  possible.  The  leading  object  of  Greek  edu- 
cation was  to  make  men  physically  perfect.  In  this 
respect,  Sparta  may  be  taken  as  the  typical  Greek  com- 
munity, for  nowhere  else  was  physical  development  so 
entirely  made  the  great  end  of  social  life.  In  these 
matters  Sparta  was  always  regarded  by  the  other  cities 
as  taking  the  lead,  —  as  having  attained  the  ideal  after 
which  all  alike  were  striving.  Now  Sparta,  situated  in 
the  midst  of  a  numerous  conquered  population  of  Mes- 
senians  and  Helots,  was  partly  a  great  gymnasium  and 
partly  a  perpetual  camp.  Her  citizens  were  always  in 
training.  The  entire  social  constitution  of  Sparta  was 
shaped  with  a  view  to  the  breeding  and  bringing  up  of 
a  strong  and  beautiful  race.  Feeble  or  ill-formed  in- 
fants were  put  to  death.  The  age  at  which  citizens 
might  marry  was  prescribed  by  law;  and  the  State 
paired  off  men  and  women  as  the  modern  breeder  pairs 
off  horses,  with  a  sole  view  to  the  excellence  of  the  off- 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

spring.  A  wife  was  not  a  helpmate,  but  a  bearer  of 
athletes.  Women  boxed,  wrestled,  and  raced ;  a  cir- 
cumstance referred  to  in  the  following  passage  of 
Aristophanes,  as  rendered  by  Mr.  Felton :  — 

LYSISTRATA. 

Hail !  Lampito,  dearest  of  Lakonian  women. 
How  shines  thy  beauty,  0  my  sweetest  friend! 
How  fair  thy  colour,  full  of  life  thy  frame  ! 
Why,  thou  couldst  choke  a  bull. 
LAMPITO. 

Yes,  by  the  Twain  ; 
For  I  do  practise  the  gymnastic  art, 
And,  leaping,  strike  my  backbone  with  my  heels. 

LYSISTRATA. 
In  sooth,  thy  bust  is  lovely  to  behold. 

The  young  men  lived  together,  like  soldiers  in  a  camp. 
They  ate  out-of-doors,  at  a  public  table.  Their  fare  was 
as  simple  as  that  of  a  modern  university  boat-crew  be- 
fore a  race.  They  slept  in  the  open  air,  and  spent  their 
waking  hours  in  wrestling,  boxing,  running  races,  throw- 
ing quoits,  and  engaging  in  mock  battles.  This  was  the 
way  in  which  the  Spartans  lived ;  and  though  no  other 
city  carried  this  discipline  to  such  an  extent,  yet  in  all 
a  very  large  portion  of  the  citizen's  life  was  spent  in 
making  himself  hardy  and  robust. 

The  ideal  man,  in  the  eyes  of  a  Greek,  was,  therefore, 
not  the  contemplative  or  delicately  susceptible  thinker, 
but  the  naked  athlete,  with  firm  flesh  and  swelling  mus- 
cles. Most  of  their  barbarian  neighbours  were  ashamed 
to  be  seen  undressed,  but  the  Greeks  seem  to  have  felt  lit- 
tle embarrassment  in  appearing  naked  in  public.  Their 
gymnastic  habits  entirely  transformed  their  sense  of 
shame.  Their  Olympic  and  other  public  games  were  a 
triumphant  display  of  naked  physical  perfection.  Young 
men  of  the  noblest  families  and  from  the  farthest  Greek 

13* 


298 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 


colonies  came  to  them,  and  wrestled  and  ran,  undraped, 
before  countless  multitudes  of  admiring  spectators. 
Note,  too,  as  significant,  that  the  Greek  era  began  with 
the  Olympic  games,  and  that  time  was  reckoned  by  the. 
intervals  between  them ;  as  well  as  the  fact  that  the 
grandest  lyric  poetry  of  antiquity  was  written  in  cele- 
bration of  these  gymnastic  contests.  The  victor  in  the 
foot-race  gave  his  name  to  the  current  Olympiad ;  and 
on  reaching  home,  was  received  by  his  fellow-citizens  as 
if  he  had  been  a  general  returning  from  a  successful 
campaign.  To  be  the  most  beautiful  man  in  Greece  was 
in  the  eyes  of  a  Greek  the  height  of  human  felicity ;  and 
with  the  Greeks,  beauty  necessarily  included  strength. 
So  ardently  did  this  gifted  people  admire  corporeal  per- 
fection that  they  actually  worshipped  it.  According  to 
Herodotos,  a  young  Sicilian  was  deified  on  account  of 
his  beauty,  and  after  his  death  altars  were  raised  to 
him.  The  vast  intellectual  power  of  Plato  and  Sokrates 
did  not  prevent  them  from  sharing  this  universal  en- 
thusiasm. Poets  like  Sophokles,  and  statesmen  like 
Alexander,  thought  it  not  beneath  their  dignity  to  en- 
gage publicly  in  gymnastic  sports. 

Their  conceptions  of  divinity  were  framed  in  accord- 
ance with  these  general  habits.  Though  sometimes,  as 
in  the  case  of  Hephaistos,  the  exigencies  of  the  particu- 
lar myth  required  the  deity  to  be  physically  imperfect, 
yet  ordinarily  the  Greek  god  was  simply  an  immortal 
man,  complete  in  strength  and  beauty.  The  deity  was 
not  invested  with  the  human  form  as  a  mere  symbol. 
They  could  conceive  no  loftier  way  of  representing  him. 
The  grandest  statue,  expressing  most  adequately  the 
calmness  of  absolutely  unfettered  strength,  might  well, 
in  their  eyes,  be  a  veritable  portrait  of  divinity.  To  a 
Greek,  beauty  of  form  was  a  consecrated  thing.  More 


A   PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 


299 


than  once  a  culprit  got  off  with  his  life  because  it 
would  have  been  thought  sacrilegious  to  put  an  end  to 
such  a  symmetrical  creature.  And  for  a  similar  rea- 
son, the  Greeks,  though  perhaps  not  more  humane  than 
the  Europeans  of  the  Middle  Ages,  rarely  allowed  the 
human  body  to  be  mutilated  or  tortured.  The  con- 
demned criminal  must  be  marred  as  little  as  possible ; 
and  he  was,  therefore,  quietly  poisoned,  instead  of  being 
hung,  beheaded,  or  broken  on  the  wheel. 

Is  not  the  unapproachable  excellence  of  Greek  statu- 
ary—  that  art  never  since  equalled,  and  most  likely, 
from  the  absence  of  the  needful  social  stimulus,  destined 
never  to  be  equalled  —  already  sufficiently  explained  ? 
Consider,  says  our  author,  the  nature  of  the  Greek 
sculptor's  preparation.  These  men  have  observed  the 
human  body  naked  and  in  movement,  in  the  bath  and 
the  gymnasium,  in  sacred  dances  and  public  games. 
They  have  noted  those  forms  and  attitudes  in  which  are 
revealed  vigour,  health,  and  activity.  And  during  three 
or  four  hundred  years  they  have  thus  modified,  corrected, 
and  developed  their  notions  of  corporeal  beauty.  There 
is,  therefore,  nothing  surprising  in  the  fact  that  Greek 
sculpture  finally  arrived  at  the  ideal  model,  the  perfect 
type,  as  it  was,  of  the  human  body.  Our  highest  no- 
tions of  physical  beauty,  down  to  the  present  day,  have 
been  bequeathed  to  us  by  the  Greeks.  The  earliest 
modern  sculptors  who  abandoned  the  bony,  hideous, 
starveling  figures  of  the  monkish  Middle  Ages,  learned 
their  first  lessons  in  better  things  from  Greek  bas-reliefs. 
And  if,  to-day,  forgetting  our  half-developed  bodies,  in- 
efficiently nourished,  because  of  our  excessive  brain- 
work,  and  with  their  muscles  weak  and  flabby  from 
want  of  strenuous  exercise,  we  wish  to  contemplate  the 
human  form  in  its  grandest  perfection,  we  must  go  to 
Hellenic  art  for  our  models. 


300  A   PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 

The  Greeks  were,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word, 
an  intellectual  race ;  but  they  never  allowed  the  mind 
to  tyrannize  over  the  body.  Spiritual  perfection,  ac- 
companied by  corporeal  feebleness,  was  the  invention 
of  asceticism;  and  the  Greeks  were  never  ascetics. 
Diogenes  might  scorn  superfluous  luxuries,  but  if  he 
ever  rolled  and  tumbled  his  tub  about  as  Eabelais  says 
he  did,  it  is  clear  that  the  victory  of  spirit  over  body 
formed  no  part  of  his  theory  of  things.  Such  an  idea 
would  have  been  incomprehensible  to  a  Greek  in  Plato's 
time.  Their  consciences  were  not  over  active.  They 
were  not  burdened  with  a  sense  of  sinfulness.  Their 
aspirations  were  decidedly  finite ;  and  they  believed  in 
securing  the  maximum  completeness  of  this  terrestrial 
life.  Consequently  they  never  set  the  physical  below 
the  intellectual.  To  return  to  our  author,  they  never, 
in  their  statues,  subordinated  symmetry  to  expression, 
the  body  to  the  head.  They  were  interested  not  only 
in  the  prominence  of  the  brows,  the  width  of  the  fore- 
head, and  the  curvature  of  the  lips,  but  quite  as  much 
in  the  massiveness  of  the  chest,  the  compactness  of  the 
thighs,  and  the  solidity  of  the  arms  and  legs.  Not  only 
the  face,  but  the  whole  body,  had  for  them  its  physiog- 
nomy. They  left  picturesqueness  to  the  painter,  and 
dramatic  fervour  to  the  poet;  and  keeping  strictly 
before  their  eyes  the  narrow  but  exalted  problem  of 
representing  the  beauty  of  symmetry,  they  filled  their 
sanctuaries  and  public  places  with  those  grand  motion- 
less people  of  brass,  gold,  ivory,  copper,  and  marble, 
in  whom  humanity  recognizes  its  highest  artistic  types. 
Statuary  was  the  central  art  of  Greece.  No  other  art 
was  so  popular,  or  so  completely  expressed  the  national 
life.  The  number  of  statues  was  enormous.  In  later 
days,  when  Rome  had  spoiled  the  Greek  world  of  its 


A   PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 


301 


treasures,  the  Imperial  City  possessed  a  population  of 
statues  almost  equal  in  number  to  its  population  of 
human  beings.  And  at  the  present  day,  after  all  the 
destructive  accidents  of  so  many  intervening  centuries, 
it  is  estimated  that  more  than  sixty  thousand  statues 
have  been  obtained  from  Rome  and  its  suburbs  alone. 

In  citing  this  admirable  exposition  as  a  specimen  of 
M.  Taine's  method  of  dealing  with  his  subject,  we  have 
refrained  from  disturbing  the  pellucid  current  of  thought 
by  criticisms  of  our  own.  We  think  the  foregoing 
explanation  correct  enough,  so  far  as  it  goes,  though 
it  deals  with  the  merest  rudiments  of  the  subject,  and 
really  does  nothing  toward  elucidating  the  deeper  mys- 
teries of  artistic  production.  For  this  there  is  needed 
a  profounder  psychology  than  M.  Taine's.  But  whether 
his  theory  of  art  be  adequate  or  not,  there  can  be  but 
one  opinion  as  to  the  brilliant  eloquence  with  which  it 
is  set  forth. 

June,  1868. 


XIV. 
ATHENIAN  AND   AMEEICAN  LIFE. 

IN  a  very  interesting  essay  on  British  and  Foreign 
Characteristics,  published  a  few  years  ago,  Mr.  W. 
R  Greg  quotes  the  famous  letter  of  the  Turkish  cadi 
to  Mr.  Layard,  with  the  comment  that  "  it  contains  the 
germ  and  element  of  a  wisdom  to  which  our  busy  and 
bustling  existence  is  a  stranger";  and  he  uses  it  as  a 
text  for  an  instructive  sermon  on  the  "  gospel  of  leisure." 
He  urges,  with  justice,  that  the  too  eager  and  restless 
modern  man,  absorbed  in  problems  of  industrial  devel- 
opment, may  learn  a  wholesome  lesson  from  the  con- 
templation of  his  Oriental  brother,  who  cares  not  to  say, 
"Behold,  this  star  spinneth  round  that  star,  and  this 
other  star  with  a  tail  cometh  and  goeth  in  so  many 
years";  who  aspires  not  after  a  "double  stomach,"  nor 
hopes  to  attain  to  Paradise  by  "  seeking  with  his  eyes." 
If  any  one  may  be  thought  to  stand  in  need  of  some 
such  lesson,  it  is  the  American  of  to-day.  Just  as  far 
as  the  Turk  carries  his  apathy  to  excess,  does  the  Ameri- 
can carry  to  excess  his  restlessness.  But  just  because 
the  incurious  idleness  of  the  Turk  is  excessive,  so  as  to 
be  detrimental  to  completeness  of  living,  it  is  unfit  to 
supply  us  with  the  hints  we  need  concerning  the  causes, 
character,  arid  effects  of  our  over-activity.  A  sermon 
of  leisure,  if  it  is  to  be  of  practical  use  to  us,  must  not 
be  a  sermon  of  laziness.  The  Oriental  state  of  mind  is 
incompatible  with  progressive  improvement  of  any  sort, 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


303 


physical,  intellectual,  or  moral.  It  is  one  of  the  phe- 
nomena attendant  upon  the  arrival  of  a  community  at 
a  stationary  condition  before  it  has  acquired  a  complex 
civilization.  And  it  appears  serviceable  rather  as  a 
background  upon  which  to  exhibit  in  relief  our  modern 
turmoil,  than  by  reason  of  any  lesson  which  it  is  itself 
likely  to  convey.  Let  us  in  preference  study  one  of 
the  most  eminently  progressive  of  all  the  communities 
that  have  existed.  Let  us  take  an  example  quite  differ- 
ent from  any  that  can  be  drawn  from  Oriental  life,  but 
almost  equally  contrasted  with  any  that  can  be  found 
among  ourselves ;  and  let  us,  with  the  aid  of  it,  examine 
the  respective  effects  of  leisure  and  of  hurry  upon  the 
culture  of  the  community. 

What  do  modern  critics  mean  by  the  "  healthy  com- 
pleteness" of  ancient  life,  which  they  are  so  fond  of 
contrasting  with  the  "heated,"  "discontented,"  or  im- 
perfect and  one-sided  existence  of  modern  communities  ? 
Is  this  a  mere  set  of  phrases,  suited  to  some  imaginary 
want  of  the  literary  critic,  but  answering  to  nothing 
real  ?  Are  they  to  be  summarily  disposed  of  as  resting 
upon  some  tacit  assumption  of  that  old-grannyism  which 
delights  in  asseverating  that  times  are  not  what  they 
used  to  be  ?  Is  the  contrast  an  imaginary  one,  due  to 
the  softened,  cheerful  light  with  which  we  are  wont  to 
contemplate  classic  antiquity  through  the  -charmed  me- 
dium of  its  incomparable  literature  ?  Or  is  it  a  real 
contrast,  worthy  of  the  attention  and  analysis  of  the 
historical  inquirer  ?  The  answer  to  these  queries  will 
lead  us  far  into  the  discussion  of  the  subject  which  we 
have  propounded,  and  we  shall  best  reach  it  by  consid- 
ering some  aspects  of  the  social  condition  of  ancient 
Greece.  The  lessons  to  be  learned  from  that  wonderful 
country  are  not  yet  exhausted.  Each  time  that  we 


304 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


return  to  that  richest  of  historic  mines,  and  delve  faith- 
fully and  carefully,  we  shall  be  sure  to  dig  up  some  jewel 
worth  carrying  away. 

And  in  considering  ancient  Greece,  we  shall  do  well 
to  confine  our  attention,  for  the  sake  of  defmiteness  of 
conception,  to  a  single  city.  Comparatively  homogene- 
ous as  Greek  civilization  was,  there  was  nevertheless  a 
great  deal  of  difference  between  the  social  circumstances 
of  sundry  of  its  civic  communities.  What  was  true  of 
Athens  was  frequently  not  true  of  Sparta  or  Thebes,  and 
general  assertions  about  ancient  Greece  are  often  likely 
to  be  correct  only  in  a  loose  and  general  way.  In  speak- 
ing, therefore,  of  Greece,  I  must  be  understood  in  the 
main  as  referring  to  Athens,  the  eye  and  light  of  Greece, 
the  nucleus  and  centre  of  Hellenic  culture. 

Let  us  note  first  that  Athens  was  a  large  city  sur- 
rounded by  pleasant  village-suburbs,  —  the  demes  of  At- 
tika,  —  very  much  as  Boston  is  closely  girdled  by  rural 
places  like  Brookline,  Jamaica  Plain,  and  the  rest,  vil- 
lage after  village  rather  thickly  covering  a  circuit  of 
from  ten  to  twenty  miles'  radius.  The  population  of 
Athens  with  its  suburbs  may  perhaps  have  exceeded 
half  a  million ;  but  the  number  of  adult  freemen  bearing 
arms  did  not  exceed  twenty -five  thousand.*  For  every 
one  of  these  freemen  there  were  four  or  five  slaves ;  not 
ignorant,  degraded  labourers,  belonging  to  an  inferior 
type  of  humanity,  and  bearing  the  marks  of  a  lower 
caste  in  their  very  personal  formation  and  in  the  colour 
of  their  skin,  like  our  lately-enslaved  negroes ;  but  in- 
telligent, skilled  labourers,  belonging  usually  to  the  Hel- 
lenic, and  at  any  rate  to  the  Aryan  race,  as  fair  and  per- 
haps as  handsome  as  their  masters,  and  not  subjected  to 

*  See  Herod.  V.  97  ;  Aristoph.  Ekkl.  432  ;  Thukycl.  II.  13  ;  Flu- 
tarch,  Perikl.  37. 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


305 


especial  ignominy  or  hardship.  These  slaves,  of  whom 
there  were  at  least  one  hundred  thousand  adult  males, 
relieved  the  twenty-five  thousand  freemen  of  nearly  all 
the  severe  drudgery  of  life ;  and  the  result  was  an 
amount  of  leisure  perhaps  never  since  known  on  an 
equal  scale  in  history. 

The  relations  of  master  and  slave  in  ancient  Athens 
constituted,  of  course,  a  very  different  phenomenon  from 
anything  which  the  history  of  our  own  Southern  States 
has  to  offer  us.  Our  Southern  slaveholders  lived  in  an 
age  of  industrial  development ;  they  were  money-mak- 
ers :  they  had  their  full  share  of  business  in  managing 
the  operations  for  which  their  labourers  supplied  the 
crude  physical  force.  It  was  not  so  in  Athens.  The 
era  of  civilization  founded  upon  organized  industry  had 
not  begun ;  money-making  had  not  come  to  be,  with  the 
Greeks,  the  one  all-important  end  of  life ;  and  mere  sub- 
sistence, which  is  now  difficult,  was  then  easy.  The 
Athenian  lived  in  a  mild,  genial,  healthy  climate,  in  a 
country  which  has  always  been  notable  for  the  activity 
and  longevity  of  its  inhabitants.  He  was  frugal  in  his 
habits,  —  a  wine-drinker  and  an  eater  of  meat,  but  rare- 
ly addicted  to  gluttony  or  intemperance.  His  dress  was 
inexpensive,  for  the  Greek  climate  made  but  little  pro- 
tection necessary,  and  the  gymnastic  habits  of  the 
Greeks  led  them  to  esteem  more  highly  'the  beauty  of 
the  body  than  that  of  its  covering.  His  house  wras  sim- 
ple, not  being  intended  for  social  purposes,  while  of  what 
we  should  call  home-life  the  Greeks  had  none.  The 
house  was  a  shelter  at  night,  a  place  where  the  frugal 
meal  might  be  taken,  a  place  where  the  wife  might  stay, 
and  look  after  the  household  slaves  or  attend  to  the 
children.  And  this  brings  us  to  another  notable  feature 
of  Athenian  life.  The  wife  having  no  position  in  so- 


306  ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 

ciety,  being  nothing,  indeed,  but  a  sort  of  household 
utensil,  how  greatly  was  life  simplified  !  What  a  door 
for  expenditure  was  there,  as  yet  securely  closed,  and 
which  no  one  had  thought  of  opening  !  No  milliner's 
or  dressmaker's  bills,  no  evening  parties,  no  Protean 
fashions,  no  elegant  furniture,  no  imperious  necessity 
for  Kleanthes  to  outshine  Kleon,  no  coaches,  no  Chateau 
Margaiix,  no  journeys  to  Arkadia  in  the  summer  !  In 
such  a  state  of  society,  as  one  may  easily  see,  the  labour 
of  one  man  would  support  half  a  dozen.  It  cost  the 
Athenian  but  a  few  cents  daily  to  live,  and  even  these 
few  cents  might  be  earned  by  his  slaves.  We  need  not, 
therefore,  be  surprised  to  learn  that  in  ancient  Athens 
there  were  no  paupers  or  beggars.  There  might  be  pov- 
erty, but  indigence  was  unknown ;  and  because  of  the 
absence  of  fashion,  style,  and  display,  even  poverty  en- 
tailed no  uncomfortable  loss  of  social  position.  The 
Athenians  valued  wealth  highly,  no  doubt,  as  a  source 
of  contributions  to  public  festivals  and  to  the  necessities 
of  the  state.  But  as  far  as  the  circumstances  of  daily 
life  go,  the  difference  between  the  rich  man  and  the 
poor  man  was  immeasurably  less  than  in  any  modern 
community,  and  the  incentives  to  the  acquirement  of 
wealth  were,  as  a  consequence,  comparatively  slight. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  Athenians  did  not  en- 
gage in  business.  Their  city  was  a  commercial  city, 
and  their  ships  covered  the  Mediterranean.  They  had 
agencies  and  factories  at  Marseilles,  on  the  remote  coasts 
of  Spain,  and  along  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea.  They 
were  in  many  respects  the  greatest  commercial  people 
of  antiquity,  and  doubtless  knew,  as  well  as  other  peo- 
ple, the  keen  delights  of  acquisition.  But  my  point  is, 
that  with  them  the  acquiring  of  property  had  not  be- 
come the  chief  or  onlv  end  of  life.  Production  was 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


307 


carried  on  almost  entirely  by  slave-labour  ;  interchange 
of  commodities  was  the  business  of  the  masters,  and 
commerce  was  in  those  days  simple.  Banks,  insurance 
companies,  brokers'  boards,  —  all  these  complex  instru- 
ments of  Mammon  were  as  yet  unthought  of.  There 
was  no  Wall  Street  in  ancient  Athens ;  there  were  no 
great  failures,  no  commercial  panics,  no  over-issues  of 
stock.  Commerce,  in  short,  was  a  quite  subordinate 
matter,  and  the  art  of  money-making  was  in  its  in- 
fancy. 

The  twenty-five  thousand  Athenian  freemen  thus  en- 
joyed, on  the  whole,  more  undisturbed  leisure,  more 
freedom  from  petty  harassing  cares,  than  any  other  com- 
munity known  to  history.  Nowhere  else  can  we  find, 
on  careful  study,  so  little  of  the  hurry  and  anxiety 
which  destroys  the  even  tenour  of  modern  life,  —  no- 
where else  so  few  of  the  circumstances  which  tend  to 
make  men  insane,  inebriate,  or  phthisical,  or  prematurely 
old. 

This  being  granted,  it  remains  only  to  state  and  illus- 
trate the  obverse  fact.  It  is  not  only  true  that  Athens 
has  produced  and  educated  a  relatively  larger  number 
of  men  of  the  highest  calibre  and  most  complete  cul- 
ture than  any  other  community  of  like  dimensions 
which  has  ever  existed ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  there 
has  been  no  other  community,  of  which -the  members 
have,  as  a  general  rule,  been  so  highly  cultivated,  or 
have  attained  individually  such  completeness  of  life. 
In  proof  of  the  first  assertion  it  will  be  enough  to  mention 
such  names  as  those  of  Solon,  Themistokles,  Perikles, 
and  Demosthenes ;  Isokrates  and  Lysias. ;  Aristophanes 
and  Menander ;  Aischylos,  Sophokles,  and  Euripides ; 
Pheidias  and  Praxiteles  ;  Sokrates  and  Plato ;  Thukyd- 
ides  and  Xenophon :  remembering  that  these  men,  dis- 


308  ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 

tinguished  for  such  different  kinds  of  achievement,  but 
like  each  other  in  consummateness  of  culture,  were  all 
produced  within  one  town  in  the  course  of  three  cen- 
turies. At  no  other  time  and  place  in  human  history 
has  there  been  even  an  approach  to  such  a  fact  as  this. 

My  other  assertion,  about  the  general  culture  of  the 
community  in  which  such  men  were  reared,  will  need  a 
more  detailed  explanation.  When  I  say  that  the  Athe- 
nian public  was,  on  the  whole,  the  most  highly  cultivated 
public  that  has  ever  existed,  I  refer  of  course  to  some- 
thing more  than  what  is  now  known  as  literary  culture. 
Of  this  there  was  relatively  little  in  the  days  of  Athe- 
nian greatness ;  and  this  was  because  there  was  not  yet 
need  for  it  or  room  for  it.  Greece  did  not  until  a  later 
time  begin  to  produce  scholars  and  savants  ;  for  the  func- 
tion of  scholarship  does  not  begin  until  there  has  been 
an  accumulation  of  bygone  literature  to  be  interpreted 
for  the  benefit  of  those  who  live  in  a  later  time.  Gre- 
cian greatness  v/as  already  becoming  a  thing  of  the  past, 
when  scholarship  and  literary  culture  of  the  modern 
type  began  at  Eome  and  Alexandria.  The  culture  of 
the  ancient  Athenians  was  largely  derived  from  direct 
intercourse  with  facts  of  nature  and  of  life,  and  with 
the  thoughts  of  rich  and  powerful  minds  orally  ex- 
pressed. The  value  of  this  must  not  be  underrated. 
We  moderns  are  accustomed  to  get  so  large  a  portion  of 
our  knowledge  and  of  our  theories  of  life  out  of  books, 
our  taste  and  judgment  are  so  largely  educated  by  in- 
tercourse with  the  printed  page,  that  we  are  apt  to 
confound  culture  with  book-knowledge ;  we  are  apt  to 
forget  the  innumerable  ways  in  which  the  highest  intel- 
lectual faculties  may  be  disciplined  without  the  aid  of 
literature.  We  must  study  antiquity  to  realize  how 
thorough!}'-  this  could  be  done.  But  even  in  our  day, 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


309 


how  much  more  fruitful  is  the  direct  influence  of  an 
original  mind  over  us,  in  the  rare  cases  when  it  can  be 
enjoyed,  than  any  indirect  influence  which  the  same 
mind  may  exert  through  the  medium  of  printed  books  ! 
What  fellow  of  a  college,  placed  amid  the  most  abun- 
dant and  efficient  implements  of  study,  ever  gets  such  a 
stimulus  to  the  highest  and  richest  intellectual  life  as 
was  afforded  to  Eckermann  by  his  daily  intercourse  with 
Goethe  ?  The  breadth  of  culture  and  the  perfection  of 
training  exhibited  by  John  Stuart  Mill  need  not  sur- 
prise us  when  we  recollect  that  his  earlier  days  were 
spent  in  the  society  of  James  Mill  and  Jeremy  Ben- 
tham.  And  the  remarkable  extent  of  view,  the  com- 
mand of  facts,  and  the  astonishing  productiveness  of 
such  modern  Frenchmen  as  Sainte-Beuve  and  Littr^  be- 
come explicable  when  we  reflect  upon  the  circumstance 
that  so  many  able  and  brilliant  men  are  collected  in  one 
city,  where  their  minds  may  continually  and  directly  re- 
act upon  each  other.  It  is  from  the  lack  of  such  per- 
sonal stimulus  that  it  is  difficult  or  indeed  wellnigh 
impossible,  even  for  those  whose  resources  are  such  as 
to  give  them  an  extensive  command  of  books,  to  keep 
up  to  the  highest  level  of  contemporary  culture  while 
living  in  a  village  or  provincial  town.  And  it  is  mainly 
because  of  the  personal  stimulus  which  it  affords  to  its 
students,  that  a  great  university,  as  a  seat  of  culture,  is 
immeasurably  superior  to  a  small  one. 

Nevertheless,  the  small  community  in  any  age  pos- 
sesses one  signal  advantage  over  the  large  one,  in  its 
greater  simplicity  of  life  and  its  consequent  relative 
leisure.  It  was  the  prerogative  of  ancient  Athens  that 
it  united  the  advantages  of  the  large  to  those  of  the 
small  community.  In  relative  simplicity  of  life  it  was 
not  unlike  the  modern  village,  while  at  the  same  time  it 


3io 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


was  the  metropolis  where  the  foremost  minds  of  the 
time  were  enabled  to  react  directly  upon  one  another. 
In  yet  another  respect  these  opposite  advantages  were 
combined.  The  twenty-five  thousand  free  inhabitants 
might  perhaps  all  know  something  of  each  other.  In 
this  respect  Athens  was  doubtless  much  like  a  New 
England  country  town,  with  the  all-important  difference 
that  the  sordid  tone  due  to  continual  struggle  for  money 
was  absent.  It  was  like  the  small  town  in  the  chance 
which  it  afforded  for  publicity  and  community  of  pur- 
suits among  its  inhabitants.  Continuous  and  unre- 
strained social  intercourse  was  accordingly  a  distinctive 
feature  of  Athenian  life.  And,  as  already  hinted,  this 
intercourse  did  not  consist  in  evening  flirtations,  with 
the  eating  of  indigestible  food  at  unseasonable  hours, 
and  the  dancing  of  "  the  German."  It  was  carried  on 
out-of-doors  in  the  brightest  sunlight ;  it  brooked  no 
effeminacy ;  its  amusements  were  athletic  games,  or  dra- 
matic entertainments,  such  as  have  hardly  since  been 
equalled.  Its  arena  was  a  town  whose  streets  were 
filled  with  statues  and  adorned  with  buildings,  merely 
to  behold  which  was  in  itself  an  education.  The  parti- 
cipators in  it  were  not  men  with  minds  so  dwarfed  by 
exclusive  devotion  to  special  pursuits  that  after  "  talk- 
ing shop  "  they  could  find  nothing  else  save  wine  and 
cookery  to  converse  about.  They  were  men  with  minds 
fresh  and  open  for  the  discussion  of  topics  which  are 
not  for  a  day  only. 

A  man  like  Sokrates,  living  in  such  a  community, 
did  not  need  to  write  down  his  wisdom.  He  had  no 
such  vast  public  as  the  modern  philosopher  has  to 
reach.  He  could  hail  any  one  he  happened  to  pass  in 
the  street,  begin  an  argument  with  him  forthwith,  and 
set  a  whole  crowd  thinking  and  inquiring  about  subjects 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE.  3II 

the  mere  contemplation  of  which  would  raise  them  for 
the  moment  above  matters  of  transient  concern.  For 
more  than  half  a  century  any  citizen  might  have  gratis 
the  benefit  of  oral  instruction  from  such  a  man  as  he. 
And  I  sometimes  think,  by  the  way,  that  —  curtailed  as 
it  is  to  literary  proportions  in  the  dialogues  of  Plato, 
bereft  of  all  that  personal  potency  which  it  had  when 
it  flowed,  instinct  with  earnestness,  from  the  lips  of  the 
teacher  —  even  to  this  day  the  wit  of  man  has  perhaps 
devised  no  better  general  gymnastics  for  the  under- 
standing than  the  Sokratic  dialectic.  I  am  far  from 
saying  that  all  Athens  listened  to  Sokrates  or  under- 
stood him:  had  it  been  so,  the  caricature  of  Aristo- 
phanes would  have  been  pointless,  and  the  sublime 
yet  mournful  trilogy  of  dialogues  which  pourtray  the 
closing  scenes  of  the  greatest  life  of  antiquity  would 
never  have  been  written.  But  the  mere  fact  that  such 
a  man  lived  and  taught  in  the  way  that  he  did  goes  far 
in  proof  of  the  deep  culture  of  the  Athenian  public. 
Further  confirmation  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
such  tragedies  as  the  Antigone,  the  Oidipous,  and  the 
Prometheus  were  written  to  suit  the  popular  taste  of 
the  time ;  not  to  be  read  by  literary  people,  or  to  be 
performed  before  select  audiences  such  as  in  our  day 
listen  to  Eistori  or  Janauschek,  but  to  hold  spell-bound 
that  vast  concourse  of  all  kinds  of  people  which  assem- 
bled at  the  Dionysiac  festivals. 

Still  further  proof  is  furnished  by  the  exquisite  liter- 
ary perfection  of  Greek  writings.  One  of  the  common 
arguments  in  favour  of  the  study  of  Greek  at  the 
present  day  is  based  upon  the  opinion  that  in  the  best 
works  extant  in  that  language  the  art  of  literary  ex- 
pression has  reached  wellnigh  absolute  perfection.  I 
fully  concur  in  this  opinion,  so  far  as  to  doubt  if  even 


312 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


the  greatest  modern  writers,  even  a  Pascal  or  a  Vol- 
taire, can  fairly  sustain  a  comparison  with  such  Athe- 
nians as  Plato  or  Lysias.  This  excellence  of  the  ancient 
books  is  in  part  immediately  due  to  the  fact  that  they 
were  not  written  in  a  hurry,  or  amid  the  anxieties  of  an 
over-busy  existence;  but  it  is  in  greater  part  due  to 
the  indirect  consequences  of  a  leisurely  life.  These 
books  were  written  for  a  public  which  knew  well 
how  to  appreciate  the  finer  beauties  of  expression ;  and, 
what  is  still  more  to  the  point,  their  authors  lived  in 
a  community  where  an  elegant  style  was  habitual. 
Before  a  matchless  style  can  be  written,  there  must  be 
a  good  style  "  in  the  air,"  as  the  French  say.  Probably 
the  most  finished  talking  and  writing  of  modern  times 
has  been  done  in  and  about  the  French  court  in  the 
seventeenth  century;  and  it  is  accordingly  there  that 
we  find  men  like  Pascal  and  Bossuet  writing  a  prose 
which  for  precision,  purity,  and  dignity  has  never  since 
been  surpassed.  It  is  thus  that  the  unapproachable 
literary  excellence  of  ancient  Greek  books  speaks  for  the 
genuine  culture  of  the  people  who  were  expected  to 
read  them,  or  to  hear  them  read.  For  one  of  the  surest 
indices  of  true  culture,  whether  professedly  literary  or 
not,  is  the  power  to  express  one's  self  in  precise,  rhyth- 
mical, and  dignified  language.  We  hardly  need  a  bet- 
ter evidence  than  this  of  the  superiority  of  the  ancient 
community  in  the  general  elevation  of  its  tastes  and 
perceptions.  Recollecting  how  Herodotos  read  his  his- 
tory at  the  Olympic  games,  let  us  try  to  imagine  even 
so  picturesque  a  writer  as  Mr.  Parkman  reading  a  few 
chapters  of  his  "  Jesuits  in  North  America  "  before  the 
spectators  assembled  at  the  Jerome  Park  races,  and 
we  shall  the  better  realize  how  deep-seated  was  Hel- 
lenic culture. 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


313 


As  yet,  however,  I  have  referred  to  but  one  side  of 
Athenian  life.  Though  "seekers  after  wisdom,"  the 
cultivated  people  of  Athens  did  not  spend  all  their 
valuable  leisure  in  dialectics  or  in  connoisseurship. 
They  were  not  a  set  of  dilettanti  or  dreamy  philoso- 
phers, and  they  were  far  from  subordinating  the  mate- 
rial side  of  life  to  the  intellectual.  Also,  though  they 
dealt  not  in  money-making  after  the  eager  fashion  of 
modern  men,  they  had  still  concerns  of  immediate 
practical  interest  with  which  to  busy  themselves.  Each 
one  of  these  twenty-five  thousand  free  Athenians  was 
not  only  a  free  voter,  but  an  office-holder,  a  legislator,  a 
judge.  They  did  not  control  the  government  through  a 
representative  body,  but  they  were  themselves  the  gov- 
ernment. They  were,  one  and  all,  in  turn  liable  to  be 
called  upon  to  make  laws,  and  to  execute  them  after  they 
were  made,  as  well  as  to  administer  justice  in  civil  and 
criminal  suits.  The  affairs  and  interests,  not  only  of 
their  own  city,  but  of  a  score  or  two  of  scattered  de- 
pendencies, were  more  or  less  closely  to  be  looked  after 
by  them.  It  lay  with  them  to  declare  war,  to  carry  it 
on  after  declaring  it,  and  to  pay  the  expenses  of  it. 
Actually  and  not  by  deputy  they  administered  the 
government  of  their  own  city,  both  in  its  local  and  in 
its  imperial  relations.  All  this  implies  a  more  thorough, 
more  constant,  and  more  vital  political  training  than 
that  which  is  implied  by  the  modern  duties  of  casting 
a  ballot  and  serving  on  a  jury.  The  life  of  the  Athe- 
nian was  emphatically  a  political  life.  From  early 
manhood  onward,  it  was  part  of  his  duty  to  hear  legal 
questions  argued  by  powerful  advocates,:  and  to  utter 
a  decision  upon  law  and  fact ;  or  to  mix  in  debate  upon 
questions  of  public  policy,  arguing,  listening,  and  pon- 
dering. It  is  customary  to  compare  the  political  talent 

14 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 

of  the  Greeks  unfavourably  with  that  displayed  by  the 
Romans,  and  I  have  no  wish  to  dispute  this  estimate. 
But  on  a  careful  study  it  will  appear  that  the  Athe- 
nians, at  least,  in  a  higher  degree  than  any  other  com- 
munity of  ancient  times,  exhibited  parliamentary  tact, 
or  the  ability  to  sit  still  while  both  sides  of  a  question 
are  getting  discussed,  —  that  sort  of  political  talent  for 
which  the  English  races  are  distinguished,  and  to  the 
lack  of  which  so  many  of  the  political  failures  of  the 
French  are  egregiously  due.  One  would  suppose  that 
a  judicature  of  the  whole  town  would  be  likely  to 
execute  a  sorry  parody  of  justice;  yet  justice  was  by 
no  means  ill-administered  at  Athens.  Even  the  most 
unfortunate  and  disgraceful  scenes,  —  as  where  the  pro- 
posed massacre  of  the  Mytilenaians  was  discussed,  and 
where  summary  retribution  was  dealt  out  to  the  gen- 
erals who  had  neglected  their  duty  at  Arginusai, — 
even  these  scenes  furnish,  when  thoroughly  examined, 
as  by  Mr.  Grote,  only  the  more  convincing  proof  that 
the  Athenian  was  usually  swayed  by  sound  reason  and 
good  sense  to  an  extraordinary  degree.  All  great  points, 
in  fact,  were  settled  rather  by  sober  appeals  to  reason 
than  by  intrigue  or  lobbying;  and  one  cannot  help 
thinking  that  an  Athenian  of  the  time  of  Perikles 
would  have  regarded  with  pitying  contempt  the  trick 
of  the  "previous  question."  And  this  explains  the 
undoubted  pre-eminence  of  Athenian  oratory.  This  ac- 
counts for  the  fact  that  we  find  in  the  forensic  annals 
of  a  single  city,  and  within  the  compass  of  a  single 
century,  such  names  as  Lysias,  Isokrates,  Andokides, 
Hypereides,  Aischiues,  and  Demosthenes.  The  art  of 
oratory,  like  the  art  of  sculpture,  shone  forth  more 
brilliantly  then  than  ever  since,  because  then  the  con- 
ditions favouring  its  development  were  more  perfectly 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


315 


combined  than  they  have  since  been.  Now,  a  condition 
of  society  in  which  the  multitude  can  always  be  made 
to  stand  quietly  and  listen  to  a  logical  discourse  is  a 
condition  of  high  culture.  Readers  of  Xenophon's  Anab- 
asis will  remember  the  frequency  of  the  speeches  in 
that  charming  book.  Whenever  some  terrible  emer- 
gency arose,  or  some  alarming  quarrel  or  disheartening 
panic  occurred,  in  the  course  of  the  retreat  of  the  Ten 
Thousand,  an  oration  from  one  of  the  commanders  — 
not  a  demagogue's  appeal  to  the  lower  passions,  but  a 
calm  exposition  of  circumstances  addressed  to  the  sober 
judgment  —  usually  sufficed  to  set  all  things  in  order. 
To  my  mind  this  is  one  of  the  most  impressive  his- 
torical lessons  conveyed  in  Xenophon's  book.  And 
this  peculiar  kind  of  self-control,  indicative  of  intellec- 
tual sobriety  and  high  moral  training,  which  was  more 
or  less  characteristic  of  all  Greeks,  was  especially  char- 
acteristic of  the  Athenians. 

These  illustrations  will,  I  hope,  suffice  to  show  that 
there  is  nothing  extravagant  in  the  high  estimate  which 
I  have  made  of  Athenian  culture.  I  have  barely  indi- 
cated the  causes  of  this  singular  perfection  of  individual 
training  in  the  social  circumstances  amid  which  the 
Athenians  lived.  I  have  alleged  it  as  an  instance  of 
what  may  be  accomplished  by  a  well-directed  leisure, 
and  in  the  absence  or  very  scanty  development  of  such 
a  complex  industrial  life  as  that  which  surrounds  us  to- 
day. But  I  have  not  yet  quite  done  with  the  Atheni- 
ans. Before  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject,  I  must 
mention  one  further  circumstance  which  tends  to  make 
ancient  life  appear  in  our  eyes  more  sunny  and  healthy, 
and  less  distressed,  than  the  life  of  modern  times.  And 
in  this  instance,  too,  though  we  are  not  dealing  with 
any  immediate  or  remote  effects  of  leisufeliness,  we  still 


316  ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 

have  to  note  the  peculiar  advantage  gained  by  the  ab- 
sence of  a  great  complexity  of  interests  in  the  ancient 
community. 

With  respect  to  religion,  the  Athenians  were  pecu- 
liarly situated.  They  had  for  the  most  part  outgrown 
the  primitive  terrorism  of  fetishistic  belief.  Save  in 
cases  of  public  distress,  as  in  the  mutilation  of  the  Her- 
mai,  or  in  the  refusal  of  Nikias  to  retreat  from  Syracuse 
because  of  an  eclipse  of  the  moon,  they  were  no  longer, 
like  savages,  afraid  of  the  dark.  Their  keen  aesthetic 
sense  had  prevailed  to  turn  the  horrors  of  a  primeval 
nature- worship  into  beauties.  Their  springs  and  groves 
were  peopled  by  their  fancy  with  naiads  and  dryads, 
not  with  trolls  and  grotesque  goblins.  Their  feelings 
toward  the  unseen  powers  at  work  about  them  were  in 
the  main  pleasant ;  as  witness  the  little  story  about 
Pheidippides  meeting  the  god  Pan  as  he  was  making 
with  hot  haste  toward  Sparta  to  announce  the  arrival 
of  the  Persians.  Now,  while  this  original  source  of 
mental  discomfort,  which  afflicts  the  uncivilized  man, 
had  ceased  materially  to  affect  the  Athenians,  they  on 
the  other  hand  lived  at  a  time  when  the  vague  sense  of 
sin  and  self-reproof  which  was  characteristic  of  the  early 
ages  of  Christianity,  had  not  yet  invaded  society.  The 
vast  complication  of  life  brought  about  by  the  extension 
of  the  Eoman  Empire  led  to  a  great  development  of  hu- 
man sympathies,  unknown  in  earlier  times,  and  called 
forth  unquiet  yearnings,  desire  for  amelioration,  a  sense 
of  short-coming,  and  a  morbid  self-consciousness.  It  is 
accordingly  under  Eoman  sway  that  we  first  come  across 
characters  approximating  to  the  modern  type,  like  Cice- 
ro, Seneca,  Epictetus,  and  Marcus  Aurelius.  It  is  then 
that  we  find  the  idea  of  social  progress  first  clearly  ex- 
pressed, that  we,  discover  some  glimmerings  of  a  con- 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


317 


scious  philanthropy,  and  that  we  detect  the  earliest 
symptoms  of  that  unhealthy  tendency  to  subordinate 
too  entirely  the  physical  to  the  moral  life,  which  reached 
its  culmination  in  the  Middle  Ages.  In  the  palmy  days 
of  the  Athenians  it  was  different.  When  we  hint  that 
they  were  not  consciously  philanthropists,  we  do  not 
mean  that  they  were  not  humane;  when  we  accredit 
them  with  no  idea  of  progress,  we  do  not  forget  how 
much  they  did  to  render  both  the  idea  and  the  reality 
possible ;  when  we  say  that  they  had  not  a  distressing 
sense  of  spiritual  unworthiness,  we  do  not  mean  that 
they  had  no  conscience.  We  mean  that  their  moral  and 
religious  life  sat  easily  on  them,  like  their  own  graceful 
drapery,  —  did  not  gall  and  worry  them,  like  the  hair- 
cloth garment  of  the  monk.  They  were  free  from  that 
dark  conception  of  a  devil  which  lent  terror  to  life  in 
the  Middle  Ages ;  and  the  morbid  self-consciousness 
which  led  mediaeval  women  to  immure  themselves  in 
convents  would  have  been  to  an  Athenian  quite  inex- 
plicable. They  had,  in  short,  an  open  and  childlike 
cenception  of  religion ;  and,  as  such,  it  was  a  sunny  con- 
ception. Any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare 
an  idyl  of  Theokritos  with  a  modern  pastoral,  or  the 
poem  of  Kleanthes  with  a  modern  hymn,  or  the  Aphro- 
dite of  Melos  with  a  modern  Madonna,  will  realize  most 
effectually  what  I  mean. 

And,  finally,  the  religion  of  the  Athenians  was  in  the 
main  symbolized  in  a  fluctuating  mythology,  and  had 
never  been  hardened  into  dogmas.  The  Athenian  was 
subject  to  no  priest,  nor  was  he  obliged  to  pin  his  faith 
to  any  formulated  creed.  His  hospitable  polytheism 
left  little  room  for  theological  persecution,  and  none  for 
any  heresy  short  of  virtual  atheism.  The  feverish  doubts 
which  rack  the  modern  mind  left  him  undisturbed. 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 

Though  he  might  sink  to  any  depth  of  scepticism  in 
philosophy,  yet  the  eternal  welfare  of  his  soul  was  not 
supposed  to  hang  upon  the  issue  of  his  doubts.  Accord- 
ingly Athenian  society  was  not  only  characterized  in 
the  main  by  freedom  of  opinion,  in  spite  of  the  excep- 
tional cases  of  Anaxagoras  and  Sokrates  ;  but  there  was 
also  none  of  that  Gothic  gloom  with  which  the  deep- 
seated  Christian  sense  of  infinite  responsibility  for  opin- 
ion has  saddened  modern  religious  life. 

In  these  reflections  I  have  wandered  a  little  way  from 
my  principal  theme,  in  order  more  fully  to  show  why 
the  old  Greek  life  impresses  us  as  so  cheerful.  Return- 
ing now  to  the  keynote  with  which  we  started,  let  us 
state  succinctly  the  net  result  of  what  has  been  said 
about  the  Athenians.  As  a  people  we  have  seen  that 
they  enjoyed  an  unparalleled  amount  of  leisure,  living 
through  life  with  but  little  turmoil  and  clatter.  Their 
life  was  more  spontaneous  and  unrestrained,  less  rigor- 
ously marked  out  by  uncontrollable  circumstances,  than 
the  life  of  moderns.  They  did  not  run  so  much  in 
grooves.  And  along  with  this  we  have  seen  reason  to 
believe  that  they  were  the  most  profoundly  cultivated 
of  all  peoples ;  that  a  larger  proportion  of  men  lived  com- 
plete, well-rounded,  harmonious  lives  in  ancient  Athens 
than  in  any  other  known  community.  Keen,  nimble- 
minded,  and  self-possessed ;  audacious  speculators,  but 
temperate  and  averse  to  extravagance ;  emotionally 
healthy,  and  endowed  with  an  unequalled  sense  of 
beauty  and  propriety;  how  admirable  and  wronderful 
they  seem  when  looked  at  across  the  gulf  of  ages  inter- 
vening, —  and  what  a  priceless  possession  to  humanity, 
of  wThat  noble  augury  for  the  distant  future,  is  the  fact 
that  such  a  society  has  once  existed ! 

The  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  the  study  of  this  antique 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


3*9 


life  will  impress  itself  more  deeply  upon  us  after  we 
have  briefly  contemplated  the  striking  contrast  to  it 
which  is  afforded  by  the  phase  of  civilization  amid 
which  we  live  to-day.  Ever  since  Greek  civilization 
was  merged  in  Roman  imperialism,  there  has  been  a 
slowly  growing  tendency  toward  complexity  of  social 
life,  —  toward  the  widening  of  sympathies,  the  multi- 
plying of  interests,  the  increase  of  the  number  of  things 
to  be  done.  Through  the  later  Middle  Ages,  after  Ko- 
man  civilization  had  absorbed  and  disciplined  the  in- 
coming barbarism  which  had  threatened  to  destroy  it, 
there  was  a  steadily  increasing  complication  of  society, 
a  multiplication  of  the  wants  of  life,  and  a  conse- 
quent enhancement  of  the  difficulty  of  self-maintenance. 
The  ultimate  causes  of  this  phenomenon  lie  so  far  be- 
neath the  surface  that  they  could  be  satisfactorily  dis- 
cussed only  in  a  technical  essay  on  the  evolution  of 
society.  It  will  be  enough  for  us  here  to  observe  that 
the  great  geographical  discoveries  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury and  the  somewhat  later  achievements  of  physical 
science  have,  during  the  past  two  hundred  years,  aided 
powerfully  in  determining  the  entrance  of  the  Western 
world  upon  an  industrial  epoch,  —  an  epoch  which  has 
for  its  final  object  the  complete  subjection  of  the  powers 
of  nature  to  purposes  of  individual  comfort  and  happi- 
ness. We  have  now  to  trace  some  of  the  effects  of  this 
lately-begun  industrial  development  upon  social  life  and 
individual  culture.  And  as  we  studied  the  leisureliness 
of  antiquity  where  its  effects  were  most  conspicuous, 
in  the  city  of  Athens,  we  shall  now  do  well  to  study 
the  opposite  characteristics  of  modern1  society  where 
they  are  most  conspicuously  exemplified,  in  our  own 
country.  The  attributes  of  American  life  which  it  will 
be  necessary  to  signalize  will  be  seen  to  be  only  the 


320 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


attributes  of  modern  life  in  their  most  exaggerated 
phase. 

To  begin  with,  in  studying  the  United  States,  we  are 
no  longer  dealing  with  a  single  city,  or  with  small 
groups  of  cities.  The  city  as  a  political  unit,  in  the  an- 
tique sense,  has  never  existed  among  us,  and  indeed  can 
hardly  be  said  now  to  exist  anywhere.  The  modern 
city  is  hardly  more  than  a  great  emporium  of  trade,  or  a 
place  where  large  numbers  of  people  find  it  convenient 
to  live  huddled  together;  not  a  sacred  fatherland  to 
which  its  inhabitants  owe  their  highest  allegiance,  and 
by  the  requirements  of  which  their  political  activity  is 
limited.  What  strikes  us  here  is  that  our  modern  life 
is  diffused  or  spread  out,  not  concentrated  like  the  an- 
cient civic  life.  If  the  Athenian  had  been  the  member 
of  an  integral  community,  comprising  all  peninsular 
Greece  and  the  mainland  of  Asia  Minor,  he  could  not 
have  taken  life  so  easily  as  he  did. 

Now  our  country  is  not  only  a  very  large  one,  but 
compared  to  its  vast  territorial  extent  it  contains  a  very 
small  population.  If  we  go  on  increasing  at  the  present 
rate,  so  that  a  century  hence  we  number  four  or  five 
hundred  millions,  our  country  will  be  hardly  more 
crowded  than  China  is  to-day.  Or  if  our  whole  popu- 
lation were  now  to  be  brought  east  of  Niagara  Falls, 
and  confined  on  the  south  by  the  Potomac,  we  should 
still  have  as  much  elbow-room  as  they  have  in  France. 
Political  economists  can  show  the  effects  of  this  high 
ratio  of  land  to  inhabitants,  in  increasing  wages,  raising 
the  interest  of  money,  and  stimulating  production.  We 
are  thus  living  amid  circumstances  which  are  goading  the 
industrial  activity  characteristic  of  the  last  two  cen- 
turies, and  notably  of  the  English  race,  into  an  almost 
feverish  energy.  The  vast  extent  of  our  unwrought  ter- 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE.  321 

ritoiy  is  constantly  draining  fresh  life  from  our  older 
districts,  to  aid  in  the  establishment  of  new  frontier 
communities  of  a  somewhat  lower  or  less  highly  or- 
ganized type.  And  these  younger  communities,  daily 
springing  up,  are  constantly  striving  to  take  on  the 
higher  structure,  —  to  become  as  highly  civilized  and  to 
enjoy  as  many  of  the  prerogatives  of  civilization  as  the 
rest.  All  this  calls  forth  an  enormous  quantity  of  activ- 
ity, and  causes  American  life  to  assume  the  aspect  of  a 
life-and-death  struggle  for  mastery  over  the  material 
forces  of  that  part  of  the  earth's  surface  upon  which  it 
thrives. 

It  is  thus  that  we  are  traversing  what  may  properly 
be  called  the  barbarous  epoch  of  our  history,  —  the 
epoch  at  which  the  predominant  intellectual  activity  is 
employed  in  achievements  which  are  mainly  of  a  ma- 
terial character.  Military  barbarism,  or  the  inability  of 
communities  to  live  together  without  frequent  warfare, 
has  been  nearly  outgrown  by  the  whole  Western  world. 
Private  wars,  long  since  made  everywhere  illegal,  have 
nearly  ceased ;  and  public  wars,  once  continual,  have  be- 
come infrequent.  But  industrial  barbarism,  by  which  I 
mean  the  inability  of  a  community  to  direct  a  portion 
of  its  time  to  purposes  of  spiritual  life,  after  providing 
for  its  physical  maintenance,  —  this  kind  of  barbarism 
the  modern  world  has  by  no  means  outgrown.  To-day,  the 
great  work  of  life  is  to  live  ;  while  the  amount  of  labour 
consumed  in  living  has  throughout  the  present  century 
been  rapidly  increasing.  Nearly  the  whole  of  this 
American  community  toils  from  youth  to  old  age  in 
merely  procuring  the  means  for  satisfying  the  transient 
wants  of  life.  Our  time  and  energies,  our  spirit  and 
buoyancy,  are  quite  used  up  in  what  is  called  "  getting 
on." 

14*  U 


222  ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 

Another  point  of  difference  between  the  structure  of 
American  and  of  Athenian  society  must  not  be  left  out 
of  the  account.  The  time  has  gone  by  in  which  the 
energies  of  a  hundred  thousand  men  and  women  could 
be  employed  in  ministering  to  the  individual  perfection 
of  twenty-five  thousand.  Slavery,  in  the  antique  sense, 
—  an  absolute  command  of  brain  as  well  as  of  muscle, 
a  slave-system  of  skilled  labour,  —  we  have  never  had. 
In  our  day  it  is  for  each  man  to  earn  his  own  bread ;  so 
that  the  struggle  for  existence  has  become  universal. 
The  work  of  one  class  does  not  furnish  leisure  for  an- 
other class.  The  exceptional  circumstances  which  freed 
the  Athenian  from  industrial  barbarism,  and  enabled 
him  to  become  the  great  teacher  and  model  of  culture 
for  the  human  race,  have  disappeared  forever. 

Then  the  general  standard  of  comfortable  living,  as 
already  hinted,  has  been  greatly  raised,  and  is  still  ris- 
ing. What  would  have  satisfied  the  ancient  would 
seem  to  us  like  penury.  "We  have  a  domestic  life  of 
which  the  Greek  knew  nothing.  We  live  during  a  large 
part  of  the  year  in  the  house.  Our  social  life  goes  on 
under  the  roof.  Our  houses  are  not  mere  places  for  eat- 
ing and  sleeping,  like  the  houses  of  the  ancients.  It 
therefore  costs  us  a  large  amount  of  toil  to  get  what  is 
called  shelter  for  our  heads.  The  sum  which  a  young 
married  man,  in  "  good  society,"  has  to  pay  for  his  house 
and  the  furniture  contained  in  it,  would  have  enabled 
an  Athenian  to  live  in  princely  leisure  from  youth  to 
old  age.  The  sum  which  he  has  to  pay  out  each  year, 
to  meet  the  complicated  expense  of  living  in  such  a 
house,  would  have  more  than  sufficed  to  bring  up  an 
Athenian  family.  If  worthy  Strepsiades  could  have  got 
an  Asmodean  glimpse  of  Fifth  Avenue,  or  even  of  some 
unpretending  street  in  Cambridge,  he  might  have  gone 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


323 


back  to  his  aristocratic  wife  a  sadder  but  a  more  con- 
tented man. 

Wealth  —  or  at  least  what  would  until  lately  have 
been  called  wealth  —  has  become  essential  to  comfort ; 
\vhile  the  opportunities  for  acquiring  it  have  in  recent 
times  been  immensely  multiplied.  To  get  money  is, 
therefore,  the  chief  end  of  life  in  our  time  and  country. 
"  Success  in  life "  has  become  synonymous  with  "  be- 
coming wealthy."  A  man  who  is  successful  in  what  he 
undertakes  is  a  man  who  makes  his  employment  pay 
him  in  money.  Our  normal  type  of  character  is  that 
of  the  shrewd,  circumspect  business  man ;  as  in  the 
Middle  Ages  it  was  that  of  the  hardy  warrior.  And  as 
in  those  days  when  fighting  was  a  constant  necessity, 
and  when  the  only  honourable  way  for  a  gentleman  of 
high  rank  to  make  money  was  by  freebooting,  fighting 
came  to  be  regarded  as  an  end  desirable  in  itself;  so  in 
these  days  the  mere  effort  to  accumulate  has  become  a 
source  of  enjoyment  rather  than  a  means  to  it.  The 
same  truth  is  to  be  witnessed  in  aberrant  types  of  char- 
acter. The  infatuated  speculator  and  the  close-fisted 
millionnaire  are  our  substitutes  for  the  mediaeval  berser- 
kir,  —  the  man  who  loved  the  pell-mell  of  a  contest  so 
well  that  he  would  make  war  on  his  neighbour,  just  to 
keep  his  hand  in.  In  like  manner,  while  such  crimes  as 
murder  and  violent  robbery  have  diminished  in  frequen- 
cy during  the  past  century,  on  the  other  hand  such 
crimes  as  embezzlement,  gambling  in  stocks,  adultera- 
tion of  goods,  and  using  of  false  weights  and  measures, 
have  probably  increased.  If  Dick  Turpin  were  now  to 
be  brought  back  to  life,  he  would  find  the  New  York 
Custom-House  a  more  congenial  and  profitable  working- 
place  than  the  king's  highway. 

The  result  of  this  universal  quest  for  money  is  that 


324  ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 

we  are  always  in  a  hurry.  Our  lives  pass  by  in  a 
whirl  It  is  all  labour  and  no  fruition.  We  work  till 
we  are  weary;  we  carry  our  work  home  with  us;  it 
haunts  our  evenings,  and  disturbs  our  sleep  as  well 
as  our  digestion.  Our  minds  are  so  burdened  with  it 
that  our  conversation,  when  serious,  can  dwell  upon 
little  else.  If  we  step  into  a  railway-car,  or  the  smok- 
ing-room of  a  hotel,  or  any  other  place  where  a  dozen 
or  two  of  men  are  gathered  together,  we  shall  hear 
them  talking  of  stocks,  of  investments,  of  commercial 
paper,  as  if  there  were  really  nothing  in  this  universe 
worth  thinking  of,  save  only  the  interchange  of  dollars 
and  commodities.  So  constant  and  unremitted  is  our 
forced  application,  that  our  minds  are  dwarfed  for 
everything  except  the  prosecution  of  the  one  universal 
pursuit. 

Are  we  now  prepared  for  the  completing  of  the 
contrast  ?  Must  we  say  that,  as  Athens  was  the  most 
leisurely  and  the  United  States  is  the  most  hurried 
community  known  in  history,  so  the  Americans  are,  as 
a  consequence  of  their  hurry,  lacking  in  thoroughness 
of  culture  ?  Or,  since  it  is  difficult  to  bring  our  mod- 
ern culture  directly  into  contrast  with  that  of  an  an- 
cient community,  let  me  state  the  case  after  a  different 
but  equivalent  fashion.  Since  the  United  States  present 
only  an  exaggerated  type  of  the  modern  industrial  com- 
munity, since  the  turmoil  of  incessant  money-getting, 
which  affects  all  modern  communities  in  large  measure, 
affects  us  most  seriously  of  all,  shall  it  be  said  that 
we  are,  on  the  whole,  less  highly  cultivated  than  our 
contemporaries  in  Western  Europe  ?  To  a  certain  ex- 
tent we  must  confess  that  this  is  the  case.  In  the 
higher  culture  —  in  the  culture  of  the  whole  man, 
according  to  the  .antique  idea  —  we  are  undoubtedly 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


325 


behind  all  other  nations  with  which  it  would  be  fair 
to  compare  ourselves.  It  will  not  do  to  decide  a 
question  like  this  merely  by  counting  literary  celebri- 
ties, although  even  thus  we  should  by  no  means  get  a 
verdict  in  our  favour.  Since  the  beginning  of  this 
century,  England  has  produced  as  many  great  writers 
and  thinkers  as  France  or  Germany;  yet  the  general 
status  of  culture  in  England  is  said  —  perhaps  with 
truth  —  to  be  lower  than  it  is  in  these  countries.  It 
is  said  that  the  average  Englishman  is  less  ready  than 
the  average  German  or  Frenchman  to  sympathize  with 
ideas  which  have  no  obvious  market-value.  Yet  in 
England  there  is  an  amount  of  high  culture  among 
those  not  professionally  scholars,  which  it  would  be 
vain  to  seek  among  ourselves.  The  purposes  of  my 
argument,  however,  require  that  the  comparison  should 
be  made  between  our  own  country  and  Western  Europe 
in  general.  Compare,  then,  our  best  magazines  —  not 
solely  with  regard  to  their  intrinsic  excellence,  but  also 
with  regard  to  the  way  in  which  they  are  sustained  — 
with  the  Eevue  des  Deux  Mondes  or  the  Journal  des 
Debats.  Or  compare  our  leading  politicians  with  men 
like  Gladstone,  Disraeli,  or  Sir  G.  C.  Lewis;  or  even 
with  such  men  as  Brougham  or  Thiers.  Or  compare 
the  slovenly  style  of  our  newspaper  articles,  I  will  not 
say  with  the  exquisite  prose  of  the  lamented  Prevost- 
Paradol,  but  with  the  ordinary  prose  of  the  French  or 
English  newspaper.  But  a  far  better  illustration  —  for 
it  goes  down  to  the  root  of  things  —  is  suggested  by 
the  recent  work  of  Matthew  Arnold  on  the  schools  of 
the  continent  of  Europe.  The  country  of  our  time 
where  the  general  culture  is  unquestionably  the  highest 
is  Prussia.  Now,  in  Prussia,  they  are  able  to  have  a 
Minister  of  Education,  who  is  .1  member  of  the  Cabinet. 


326  ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 

They  are  sure  that  this  minister  will  not  appoint  or 
remove  even  an  assistant  professor  for  political  reasons. 
Only  once,  as  Arnold  tells  us,  has  such  a  thing  been 
done ;  and  then  public  opinion  expressed  itself  in  such 
an  emphatic  tone  of  disapproval  that  the  displaced 
teacher  was  instantly  appointed  to  another  position. 
Nothing  of  this  sort,  says  Arnold,  could  have  occurred 
in  England;  but  still  less  could  it  occur  in  America. 
Had  we  such  an  educational  system,  there  would 
presently  be  an  "Education  King"  to  control  it.  Nor 
can  this  difference  be  ascribed  to  the  less  eager  political 
activity  of  Germany.  The  Prussian  state  of  things 
would  have  been  possible  in  ancient  Athens,  where 
political  life  was  as  absorbing  and  nearly  as  turbulent 
as  in  the  United  States.  The  difference  is  due  to  our 
lack  of  faith  in  culture,  a  lack  of  faith  in  that  of  which 
we  have  not  had  adequate  experience. 

We  lack  culture  because  we  live  in  a  hurry,  and 
because  our  attention  is  given  up  to  pursuits  which 
call  into  activity  and  develop  but  one  side  of  us.  On 
the  one  hand  contemplate  Sokrates  quietly  entertain- 
ing a  crowd  in  the  Athenian  market-place,  and  on 
the  other  hand  consider  Broadway  with  its  eternal  clat- 
ter, and  its  throngs  of  hurrying  people  elbowing  and 
treading  on  each  other's  heels,  and  you  will  get  a  lively 
notion  of  the  difference  between  the  extreme  phases 
of  ancient  and  modern  life.  By  the  time  we  have 
thus  rushed  through  our  day,  we  have  no  strength  left 
to  devote  to  things  spiritual.  To-day  finds  us  no 
nearer  fruition  than  yesterday.  And  if  perhaps  the 
time  at  last  arrives  when  fruition  is  practicable,  our 
minds  have  run  so  long  in  the  ruts  that  they  cannot 
be  twisted  out. 

As  it  is  impossible  for  any  person  living  in  a  given 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE, 


327 


state  of  society  to  keep  himself  exempt  from  its  influ- 
ences, detrimental  as  well  as  beneficial,  we  find  that 
even  those  who  strive  to  make  a  literary  occupation 
subservient  to  purposes  of  culture  are  not,  save  in  rare 
cases,  spared  by  the  general  turmoil.  Those  who  have 
at  once  the  ability,  the  taste,  and  the  wealth  needful  for 
training  themselves  to  the  accomplishment  of  some 
many-sided  and  permanent  work  are  of  course  very 
few.  Nor  have  our  universities  yet  provided  them- 
selves with  the  means  for  securing  to  literary  talent 
the  leisure  which  is  essential  to  complete  mental  devel- 
opment, or  to  a  high  order  of  productiveness.  Although 
in  most  industrial  enterprises  we  know  how  to  work 
together  so  successfully,  in  literature  we  have  as  yet  no 
co-operation.  We  have  not  only  no  Paris,  but  we  have 
not  even  a  Tubingen,  a  Leipsic,  or  a  Jena,  or  anything 
corresponding  to  the  fellowships  in  the  English  uni- 
versities. Our  literary  workers  have  no  choice  but  to 
fall  into  the  ranks,  and  make  merchandise  of  their 
half-formed  ideas.  They  must  work  without  co-opera- 
tion, they  must  write  in  a  hurry,  and  they  must  write 
for  those  who  have  no  leisure  for  aught  but  hasty  and 
superficial  reading. 

Bursting  boilers  and  custom-house  frauds  may  have 
at  first  sight  nothing  to  do  with  each  other  or  with  my 
subject.  It  is  indisputable,  however,  that'  the  horrible 
massacres  perpetrated  every  few  weeks  or  months  by 
our  common  carriers,  and  the  disgraceful  peculation  in 
which  we  allow  our  public  servants  to  indulge  with 
hardly  ever  an  effective  word  of  protest,  are  alike  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  same  causes  which  interfere  with  our 
higher  culture.  It  is  by  no  means  a  mere  accidental 
coincidence  that  for  every  dollar  stolen  by  government 
officials  in  Prussia,  at  least  fifty  or  a  hundred  are  stolen 


328 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


in  the  United  States.  This  does  not  show  that  the 
Germans  are  our  superiors  in  average  honesty,  but  it 
shows  that  they  are  our  superiors  in  thoroughness.  It 
is  with  them  an  imperative  demand  that  any  official 
whatever  shall  be  qualified  for  his  post ;  a  principle  of 
public  economy  which  in  our  country  is  not  simply 
ignored  in  practice,  but  often  openly  laughed  at.  But 
in  a  country  where  high  intelligence  and  thorough 
training  are  imperatively  demanded,  it  follows  of  neces- 
sity that  these  qualifications  must  insure  for  their  pos- 
sessors a  permanent  career  in  which  the  temptations  to 
malfeasance  or  dishonesty  are  reduced  to  the  minimum. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  a  country  where  intelligence  and 
training  have  no  surety  that  they  are  to  carry  the  day 
against  stupidity  and  inefficiency,  the  incentives  to 
dishonourable  conduct  are  overpowering.  The  result 
in  our  own  political  life  is  that  the  best  men  are  driven 
in  disgust  from  politics,  and  thus  one  of  the  noblest 
fields  for  the  culture  of  the  whole  man  is  given  over  to 
be  worked  by  swindlers  and  charlatans.  To  an  Athe- 
nian such  a  severance  of  the  highest  culture  from 
political  life  would  have  been  utterly  inconceivable. 
Obviously  the  deepest  explanation  of  all  this  lies  in  our 
lack  of  belief  in  the  necessity  for  high  and  thorough 
training.  We  do  not  value  culture  enough  to  keep  it 
in  our  employ  or  to  pay  it  for  its  services ;  and  what 
is  this  short-sighted  negligence  but  the  outcome  of  the 
universal  shiftlessness  begotten  of  the  habit  of  doing 
everything  in  a  hurry  ?  On  every  hand  we  may  see 
the  fruits  of  this  shiftlessness,  from  buildings  that 
tumble  in,  switches  that  are  misplaced,  furnaces  that 
are  ill-protected,  fire-brigades  that  are  without  disci- 
pline, up  to  unauthorized  meddlings  with  the  currency, 
and  revenue  laws  which  defeat  their  own  purpose. 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE.  329 

I  said  above  that  the  attributes  of  American  life 
which  we  should  find  it  necessary  for  our  purpose  to 
signalize  are  simply  the  attributes  of  modern  life  in 
their  most  exaggerated  phase.  Is  there  not  a  certain 
sense  in  which  all  modern  handiwork  is  hastily  and  im- 
perfectly done  ?  To  begin  with  common  household  arts, 
does  not  every  one  know  that  old  things  are  more  dur- 
able than  new  things  ?  Our  grandfathers  wore  better 
shoes  than  we  wear,  because  there  was  leisure  enough  to 
cure  the  leather  properly.  In  old  times  a  chair  was 
made  of  seasoned  wood,  and  its  joints  carefully  fitted ; 
its  maker  had  leisure  to  see  that  it  was  well  put  to- 
gether. Now  a  thousand  are  turned  off  at  once  by 
machinery,  out  of  green  wood,  and,  with  their  backs 
glued  on,  are  hurried  off  to  their  evil  fate,  —  destined 
to  drop  in  pieces  if  they  happen  to  stand  near  the  fire- 
place, and  liable  to  collapse  under  the  weight  of  a  heavy 
man.  Some  of  us  still  preserve,  as  heirlooms,  old  tables 
and  bedsteads  of  Cromwellian  times :  in  the  twenty- 
first  century  what  will  have  become  of  our  machine- 
made  bedsteads  and  tables  ? 

Perhaps  it  may  seem  odd  to  talk  about  tanning  and 
joinery  in  connection  with  culture,  but  indeed  there  is 
a  subtle  bond  of  union  holding  together  all  these  things. 
Any  phase  of  life  can  be  understood  only  by  associating 
with  it  some  different  phase.  Sokrates  himself  has 
taught  us  how  the  homely  things  illustrate  the  grand 
things.  If  we  turn  to  the  art  of  musical  composition, 
and  inquire  into  some  of  the  differences  between  our  re- 
cent music  and  that  of  Handel's  time,  we  shall  alight 
upon  the  very  criticism  which  Mr.  Mill  somewhere 
makes  in  comparing  ancient  with  modern  literature : 
the  substance  has  improved,  but  the  form  has  in  some 
respects  deteriorated.  The  modern  music  expresses  the 


330  ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 

results  of  a  richer  and  more  varied  emotional  experi- 
ence, and  in  wealth  of  harmonic  resources,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  increased  skill  in  orchestration,  it  is  notably 
superior  to  the  old  music.  Along  with  this  advance, 
however,  there  is  a  perceptible  falling  off  in  symmetry 
and  completeness  of  design,  and  in  what  I  would  call 
spontaneousness  of  composition.  I  believe  that  this  is 
because  modern  composers,  as  a  rule,  do  not  drudge 
patiently  enough  upon  counterpoint.  They  do  not  get 
that  absolute  mastery  over  technical  difficulties  of 
figuration  which  was  the  great  secret  of  the  incredible 
facility  and  spontaneity  of  composition  displayed  by 
Handel  and  Bach.  Among  recent  musicians  Mendels- 
sohn is  the  most  thoroughly  disciplined  in  the  elements 
of  counterpoint ;  and  it  is  this  perfect  mastery  of  the 
technique  of  his  art  which  has  enabled  him  to  outrank 
Schubert  and  Schumann,  neither  of  whom  would  one 
venture  to  pronounce  inferior  to  him  in  native  wealth 
of  musical  ideas.  May  we  not  partly  attribute  to  rudi- 
mentary deficiency  in  counterpoint  the  irregularity  of 
structure  which  so  often  disfigures  the  works  of  the 
great  Wagner  and  the  lesser  Liszt,  and  which  the  more 
ardent  admirers  of  these  composers  are  inclined  to  re- 
gard as  a  symptom  of  progress  ? 

I  am  told  that  a  similar  illustration  might  be  drawn 
from  the  modern  history  of  painting ;  that,  however 
noble  the  conceptions  of  the  great  painters  of  the  pres- 
ent century,  there  are  none  who  have  gained  such  a 
complete  mastery  over  the  technicalities  of  drawing  and 
the  handling  of  the  brush  as  was  required  in  the  times 
of  Raphael,  Titian,  and  Rubens.  But  on  this  point  I 
can  only  speak  from  hearsay,  and  am  quite  willing  to 
end  here  my  series  of  illustrations,  fearing  that  I  may 
already  have  been  wrongly  set  down  as  a  laudator  tern- 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


331 


poris  acti.  Not  the  idle  praising  of  times  gone  by,  but 
the  getting  a  lesson  from  them  which  may  be  of  use  to 
us,  has  been  my  object.  And  I  believe  enough  has 
been  said  to  show  that  the  great  complexity  of  modern 
life,  with  its  multiplicity  of  demands  upon  our  energy, 
has  got  us  into  a  state  of  chronic  hurry,  the  results  of 
which  are  everywhere  to  be  seen  in  the  shape  of  less 
thorough  workmanship  and  less  rounded  culture. 

For  one  moment  let  me  stop  to  note  a  further  source 
of  the  relative  imperfection  of  modern  culture,  which  is 
best  illustrated  in  the  case  of  literature.  I  allude  to 
the  immense,  unorganized  mass  of  literature  in  all  de- 
partments, representing  the  accumulated  acquisitions  of 
past  ages,  which  must  form  the  basis  of  our  own  achieve- 
ment, but  with  which  our  present  methods  of  education 
seem  inadequate  to  deal  properly.  Speaking  roughly, 
modern  literature  may  be  said  to  be  getting  into  the 
state  which  Roman  jurisprudence  was  in  before  it  was 
reformed  by  Justinian.  Philosophic  criticism  has  not 
yet  reached  the  point  at  which  it  may  serve  as  a  natural 
codifier.  We  must  read  laboriously  and  expend  a  dis- 
proportionate amount  of  time  and  pains  in  winnowing 
the  chaff  from  the  wheat.  This  tends  to  make  us 
"  digs  "  or  literary  drudges ;  but  I  doubt  if  the  "  dig  "  is 
a  thoroughly  developed  man.  Goethe,  with  all  his 
boundless  knowledge,  his  universal  curiosity,  and  his 
admirable  capacity  for  work,  was  not  a  "  dig."  But  this 
matter  can  only  be  hinted  at :  it  is  too  large  to  be  well 
discussed  at  the  fag  end  of  an  essay  while  other  points 
are  pressing  for  consideration. 

A  state  of  chronic  hurry  not  only  directly  hinders  the 
performance  of  thorough  work,  but  it  lias  an  indirect 
tendency  to  blunt  the  enjoyment  of  life.  Let  us  con- 
sider for  a  moment  one  of  the  psychological  consequen- 


332 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


ces  entailed  by  the  strain  of  a  too  complex  and  rapid 
activity.  Every  one  must  have  observed  that  in  going 
off  for  a  vacation  of  two  or  three  weeks,  or  in  getting 
freed  in  any  way  from  the  ruts  of  every-day  life,  time 
slackens  its  gait  somewhat,  and  the  events  which  occur 
are  apt  a  few  years  later  to  cover  a  disproportionately 
large  area  in  our  recollections.  This  is  because  the  hu- 
man organism  is  a  natural  timepiece  in  which  the  ticks 
are  conscious  sensations.  The  greater  the  number  of 
sensations  which  occupy  the  foreground  of  consciousness 
during  the  day,  the  longer  the  day  seems  in  the  retro- 
spect. But  the  various  groups  of  sensations  which  ac- 
company our  daily  work  tend  to  become  automatic  from 
continual  repetition,  and  to  sink  into  the  background  of 
consciousness ;  and  in  a  very  complex  and  busied  life 
the  number  of  sensations  or  states  of  consciousness 
which  can  struggle  up  to  the  front  and  get  attended  to, 
is  comparatively  small.  It  is  thus  that  the  days  seem 
so  short  when  we  are  busy  about  every-day  matters,  and 
that  they  get  blurred  together,  and  as  it  were  individ- 
ually annihilated  in  recollection.  When  we  travel,  a 
comparatively  large  number  of  fresh  sensations  occupy 
attention,  there  is  a  maximum  of  consciousness,  and  a 
distinct  image  is  left  to  loom  up  in  memory.  For  the 
same  reason  the  weeks  and  years  are  much  longer  to  the 
child  than  to  the  grown  man.  The  life  is  simpler  and 
less  hurried,  so  that  there  is  time  to  attend  to  a  great 
many  sensations.  Now  this  fact  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
that  keen  enjoyment  of  existence  which  is  the  prerog- 
ative of  childhood  and  early  youth.  The  day  is  not 
rushed  through  by  the  automatic  discharge  of  certain 
psychical  functions,  but  each  sensation  stays  long  enough 
to  make  itself  recognized.  Now  when  once  we  under- 
stand the  psychology  of  this  matter,  it  becomes  evident 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


333 


that  the  same  contrast  that  holds  between  the  child  and 
the  man  must  hold  also  between  the  ancient  and  the 
modern.  The  number  of  elements  entering  into  ancient 
life  were  so  few  relatively,  that  there  must  have  been 
far  more  than  there  is  now  of  that  intense  realization 
of  life  which  we  can  observe  in  children  and  remember 
of  our  own  childhood.  Space  permitting,  it  would  be 
easy  to  show  from  Greek  literature  how  intense  was 
this  realization  of  life.  But  my  point  will  already  have 
been  sufficiently  apprehended.  Already  we  cannot  fail 
to  see  how  difficult  it  is  to  get  more  than  a  minimum 
of  conscious  fruition  out  of  a  too  complex  and  rapid 
activity. 

One  other  point  is  worth  noticing  before  we  close. 
How  is  this  turmoil  of  modern  existence  impressing  itself 
upon  the  physical  constitutions  of  modern  men  and 
women  ?  When  an  individual  man  engages  in  furious 
productive  activity,  his  friends  warn  him  that  he  will 
break  down.  Does  the  collective  man  of  our  time  need 
some  such  friendly  warning  ?  Let  us  first  get  a  hint 
from  what  foreigners  think  of  us  ultra-modernized 
Americans.  Wandering  journalists,  of  an  ethnological 
turn  of  mind,  who  visit  these  shores,  profess  to  be  struck 
with  the  slenderness,  the  apparent  lack  of  toughness, 
the  dyspeptic  look,  of  the  American  physique.  And 
from  such  observations  it  has  been  seriously  argued  that 
the  stalwart  English  race  is  suffering  inevitable  de- 
generacy in  this  foreign  climate.  I  have  even  seen  it 
doubted  whether  a  race  of  men  can  ever  become  thor- 
oughly naturalized  in  a  locality  to  which  it  is  not  indi- 
crenous.  To  such  vagaries  it  is  a  sufficient  answer  that 
the  English  are  no  more  indigenous  to  England  than  to 
America.  They  are  indigenous  to  Central  Asia,  and  as 
they  have  survived  the  first  transplantation,  they  may 


334 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


be  safely  counted  on  to  survive  the  second.  A  more 
careful  survey  will  teach  us  that  the  slow  alteration  of 
physique  which  is  going  on  in  this  country  is  only  an 
exaggeration  of  that  which  modern  civilization  is  tend- 
ing to  bring  about  everywhere.  It  is  caused  by  the 
premature  and  excessive  strain  upon  the  mental  powers 
requisite  to  meet  the  emergencies  of  our  complex  life. 
The  progress  of  events  has  thrown  the  work  of  sustain- 
ing life  so  largely  upon  the  brain  that  we  are  beginning 
to  sacrifice  the  physical  to  the  intellectual.  We  are 
growing  spirituelle  in  appearance  at  the  expense  of  ro- 
bustness. Compare  any  typical  Greek  face,  with  its 
firm  muscles,  its  symmetry  of  feature,  and  its  serenity 
of  expression,  to  a  typical  modern  portrait,  with  its  more 
delicate  contour,  its  exaggerated  forehead,  its  thoughtful, 
perhaps  jaded  look.  Or  consider  in  what  respects  the 
grand  faces  of  the  Plantagenet  monarchs  differ  from  the 
refined  countenances  of  the  leading  English  statesmen 
of  to-day.  Or  again,  consider  the  familiar  pictures  of 
the  Oxford  and  Harvard  crews  which  rowed  a  race  on 
the  Thames  in  1869,  and  observe  how  much  less  youth- 
ful are  the  faces  of  the  Americans.  By  contrast  they 
almost  look  careworn.  The  summing  up  of  countless 
such  facts  is  that  modern  civilization  is  making  us  ner- 
vous. Our  most  formidable  diseases  are  of  nervous 
origin.  We  seem  to  have  got  rid  of  the  mediaeval  plague 
and  many  of  its  typhoid  congeners;  but  instead  we 
have  an  increased  amount  of  insanity,  methomania,  con- 
sumption, dyspepsia,  and  paralysis.  In  this  fact  it  is 
plainly  written  that  we  are  suffering  physically  from  the 
over-work  and  over-excitement  entailed  by  excessive 
hurry. 

In  view  of  these  various  but  nearly  related  points  of 
difference  between  ancient  and  modern  life  as  studied 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE.  335 

in  their  extreme  manifestations,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
while  we  have  gained  much,  we  have  also  lost  a  good 
deal  that  is  valuable,  in  our  progress.  We  cannot  but 
suspect  that  we  are  not  in  all  points  more  highly  fa- 
voured than  the  ancients.  And  it  becomes  probable 
that  Athens,  at  all  events,  which  I  have  chosen  as  my 
example,  may  have  exhibited  an  adumbration  of  a  state 
of  things  which,  for  the  world  at  large,  is  still  in  the 
future,  —  still  to  be  remotely  hoped  for.  The  rich 
complexity  of  modern  social  achievement  is  attained  at 
the  cost  of  individual  many-sidedness.  As  Tennyson 
puts  it,  "  The  individual  withers  and  the  world  is  more 
and  more."  Yet  the  individual  does  not  exist  for  the 
sake  of  society,  as  the  positivists  would  have  us  believe, 
but  society  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  individual.  And 
the  test  of  complete  social  life  is  the  opportunity  which 
it  affords  for  complete  individual  life.  Tried  by  this 
test,  our  contemporary  civilization  will  appear  seriously 
defective, — :  excellent  only  as  a  preparation  for  some- 
thing better. 

This  is  the  true  light  in  which  to  regard  it.  This  in- 
cessant turmoil,  this  rage  for  accumulation  of  wealth,  this 
crowding,  jostling,  and  trampling  upon  one  another,  can- 
not be  regarded  as  permanent,  or  as  anything  more  than 
the  accompaniment  of  a  transitional  stage  of  civiliza- 
tion. There  must  be  a  limit  to  the  extent  to  which  the 
standard  of  comfortable  living  can  be  raised.  The  in- 
dustrial organization  of  society,  which  is  now  but  begin- 
ning, must  culminate  in  a  state  of  things  in  which  the 
means  of  expense  will  exceed  the  demand  for  expense, 
in  which  the  human  race  will  have  some  surplus  capi- 
tal. The  incessant  manual  labour  which  the  ancients 
relegated  to  slaves  will  in  course  of  time  be  more  and 
more  largely  performed  by  inanimate  -machinery.  Un- 


336 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


skilled  labour  will  for  the  most  part  disappear.  Skilled 
labour  will  consist  in  the  guiding  of  implements  con- 
trived with  versatile  cunning  for  the  relief  of  human 
nerve  and  muscle.  Ultimately  there  will  be  no  unset- 
tled land  to  fill,  no  frontier  life,  no  savage  races  to  be 
assimilated  or  extirpated,  no  extensive  migration.  Thus 
life  will  again  become  comparatively  stationary.  The 
chances  for  making  great  fortunes  quickly  will  be  dimin- 
ished, while  the  facilities  for  acquiring  a  competence  by 
steady  labour  will  be  increased.  When  every  one  is 
able  to  reach  the  normal  standard  of  comfortable  living, 
we  must  suppose  that  the  exaggerated  appetite  for 
wealth  and  display  will  gradually  disappear.  We  shall 
be  more  easily  satisfied,  and  thus  enjoy  more  leisure. 
It  may  be  that  there  will  ultimately  exist,  over  the 
civilized  world,  conditions  as  favourable  to  the  complete 
fruition  of  life  as  those  which  formerly  existed  within 
the  narrow  circuit  of  Attika ;  save  that  the  part  once 
played  by  enslaved  human  brain  and  muscle  will  finally 
be  played  by  the  enslaved  forces  of  insentient  nature. 
Society  will  at  last  bear  the  test  of  providing  for  the 
complete  development  of  its  individual  members. 

So,  at  least,  we  may  hope ;  such  is  the  probability 
which  the  progress  of  events,  when  carefully  questioned, 
sketches  out  for  us.  "  Need  we  fear,"  asks  Mr.  Greg, 
"  that  the  world  would  stagnate  under  such  a  change  ? 
Need  we  guard  ourselves  against  the  misconstruction 
of  being  held  to  recommend  a  life  of  complacent  and 
inglorious  inaction  ?  We  think  not.  We  would  only 
substitute  a  nobler  for  a  meaner  strife, — a  rational  for  an 
excessive  toil,  —  an  enjoyment  that  springs  from  seren- 
ity, for  one  that  springs  from  excitement  only To 

each  time  its  own  preacher,  to  each  excess  its  own  coun- 
teraction. In  an  age  of  dissipation,  languor,  and  stagna- 


ATHENIAN  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE. 


337 


tion,  we  should  join  with  Mr.  Carlyle  in  preaching  the 
'  Evangel  of  Work,'  and  say  with  him,  '  Blessed  is  the 
man  who  has  found  his  work,  —  let  him  ask  no  other 
blessedness.'  In  an  age  of  strenuous,  frenzied,  ....  and 
often  utterly  irrational  and  objectless  exertion,  we  join 
Mr.  Mill  in  preaching  the  milder  and  more  needed 
'  Evangel  of  Leisure.' " 

Bearing  all  these  things  in  mind,  we  may  understand 
the  remark  of  the  supremely  cultivated  Goethe,  when 
asked  who  were  his  masters :  Die  Griechen,  die  Griechen, 
und  immer  die  Griechen.  "We  may  appreciate  the  sig- 
nificance of  Mr.  Mill's  argument  in  favour  of  the  study 
of  antiquity,  that  it  preserves  the  tradition  of  an  era  of 
individual  completeness.  There  is  a  disposition  grow- 
ing among  us  to  remodel  our  methods  of  education  in 
conformity  with  the  temporary  requirements  of  the  age 
in  which  we  live.  In  this  endeavour  there  is  much  that 
is  wise  and  practical ;  but  in  so  far  as  it  tends  to  the 
neglect  of  antiquity,  I  cannot  think  it  well-timed.  Our 
education  should  not  only  enhance  the  value  of  what  we 
possess  ;  it  should  also  supply  the  consciousness  of  what 
we  lack.  And  while,  for  generations  to  come,  we  pass 
toilfully  through  an  era  of  exorbitant  industrialism, 
some  fragment  of  our  time  will  not  be  misspent  in  keep- 
ing alive  the  tradition  of  a  state  of  things  which  was 
once  briefly  enjoyed  by  a  little  community,  but  which, 
in  the  distant  future,  will,  as  it  is  hoped,  become  the 
permanent  possession  of  all  mankind. 

January,  1873. 


15 


INDEX. 


INDEX. 


Abstract  and  concrete  imagination, 
165-167. 

Abulpharagius,  173. 

Acts  of  the  Apostles,  76,  82,  89,  107. 

Adamantine  character  of  ether,  20,  37. 

JSons  postulated  by  Gnostics,  118  ff. 

Aerolites,  61. 

Ahriman,  119. 

Alexandrian  library,  171-174. 

American  civilization,  wherein  imper- 
fect, 321. 

American  physique,  333. 

Ambros,  276. 

Amrou,  171-174. 

Anagram  on  the  "  Unseen  World,"  34. 

Ananias  and  Sapphira,  89. 

Anaxagoras,  318. 

Ancient  life  contrasted  with  modern, 
302  ff. 

Angel  of  Jehovah,  119. 

Antioch,  Council  of,  127. 

Antwerp,  siege  of,  204  -  209. 

Apocalypse,  69,  72,  101,  106,  112. 

Arab  contributions  to  science,  139  - 
141. 

Arabic  manuscripts  burned  by  Xime- 
nes,  172. 

Argiuusai,  314. 

Aristophanes,  297,  311. 

Arius,  127. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  on  Paul's  doctrine 
of  faith,  108  ;  on  translating  Homer, 
237  ;  on  state  education  in  Prussia, 
325. 

Art  as  imitation,  285  ff. 

Artistic  and  critical  genius,  165-167. 

Ascension  of  Jesus,  legend  of,  107. 


Asiatic  communities,  isolation  of,  201. 

Athenian  religion,  316. 

Athens,  304  ff. 

Atoms,  vortex  theory  of,  22  -  27 ;  size 

of,  39. 

Attika,  demes  of,  304. 
Automatism  of  repeated  impressions, 

332. 
Avignon,  removal  of  Papacy  to,  214. 


B. 

Babbage,  Charles,  on  the  permanence 

of  facts  and  their  registry  in  nature, 

33. 
Bach,  J.  S.,  prelude  in  B-b  minor,  273 ; 

his  facility  of  composition,  330. 
Baptism  of  Jesus,  86,  115. 
Barbarism,  military  and  industrial,  321. 
Barendz,  voyage  of,  213. 
Barletta,  challenge  of,  212. 
Bastian  on  spontaneous  generation,  49. 
Baur,  F.  C.,  75,  114. 
Beatrice  Portinari,  189. 
Beauquier  on  vocal  and  instrumental 

music,  276. 

Becket,  Thomas,  71,  87,  215. 
Beethoven,  L.,  56,  166,  279. 
Beesly,  E.,  on  Catiline,  170. 
Bengal,  harvests  of,  192. 
Berkeley,  G.,  50. 
Berserkirs  and  millionaires,  323. 
Berthoud,  H. ,  his  hoax  about  Solomon 

de  Caus,  187. 
Biblical  criticism,  Spinoza  and  Lessing 

its  real  inaugurators,  73,  154  ;  F.  C. 

Baur  the  greatest  worker  in  this  field, 

75 ;  monopolized  by  Germany,  76. 


342 


INDEX. 


Boccaccio's  story  of  the  Three  Rings, 

162. 

Boileau,  261. 

Book-burning  by  fanatics,  172. 
Bossuet,  312. 

Brain,  molecular  action  in,  41. 
Bretschn  eider,  74. 
Bridgewater  Treatises,  55. 
Biichner,  Ludwig,  36,  41. 
Burden  of  existence,  55  -  58. 
Bursting  boilers,  327. 


c. 

Cadences  in  music,  272  ff. 

Caesar,  Julius,  134. 

Canon  of  New  Testament,  its  forma- 
tion guided  rather  by  dogmatic  pre- 
possession than  by  critical  consider- 
ations, 71,  72. 

Cantata,  279. 

Caraffa,  217. 

Carlyle,  T.,  on  Dante,  260. 

Cartesian  puzzle  concerning  the  inter- 
action of  spirit  and  matter,  118. 

Cary's  translation  of  Dante,  261  ff. 

Catastrophes  in  geology,  4. 

Catharine  de'  Medici,  225. 

Cathedrals  and  forests,  290. 

Catiline,  170. 

Caus,  Solomon  de,  187. 

Causation,  5. 

Cervantes,  232. 

Charles  the  Bold,  222. 

Charles  V.,  Roman  Emperor,  222  ff. 

Charles  VII.,  of  France,  his  ingrati- 
tude toward  Jeanne  d'Arc,  184. 

Chemical  composition  of  stars  like  that 
of  sun  and  planets,  14. 

Cherbuliez,  V.,  156. 

Children's  enjoyment  of  life,  332. 

Chopin,  56,  294. 

Cicero,  170. 

Cities,  ancient  and  modern,  294,  320. 

Clairvoyance,  43. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  72,  127. 

Clementine  Homilies,  119. 

Clifford,  W.  K.,  his  doubt  as  to  the 
eternity  of  mechanical,  laws,  18  ; 


his  illustrations  of  vortex  motion,  22 ; 

on  matter  and  ether,  24. 
Colani,  76. 

Collisions  between  stars,  16. 
Colossians,  epistle  to,  120. 
Concrete    and    abstract    imagination, 

165  ff. 
Conflict  between  religion  and  science, 

3,  142-146. 

Continuity,  principle  of,  4  ff. 
Copernican  theory  as  relating  to  heaven 

and  hell,  104,  126;   as  relating  to 

final  causes,  213. 
"Cosmic  Philosophy,"  referred  to,  7, 

35,  42,  47,  51,  260. 
Cosmic  theism,  5. 
Cosinical  work,  cessation  of,  16. 
Cranmer,  225. 

Creation,  Gnostic  theory  of,  118. 
Critical  and  artistic  genius,  165  ff. 
Criticism  in  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 

centuries,  257. 
Culture  and  book-knowledge,  308  ;  in 

America  and  Europe,  325. 
Custom-houses  and  highwaymen,  323, 

327. 

D. 

Dacoits,  200. 

Daniel,  Book  of,  112. 

Dante,  his  materialistic  descriptions  of 
the  future  life,  45  ;  intensity  of  his 
imagination,  166  ;  his  frozen  lake  be- 
low Malebolge,  166 ;  compared  with 
Homer,  238 ;  his  descriptions  not 
really  grotesque,  249  ;  ill  appreci- 
ated in  the  eighteenth  century,  259  ; 
his  Paradiso,  271. 

Davidson  on  the  New  Testament,  78. 

Death  of  visible  universe  coincident 
with  dawning  of  life  in  invisible,  35. 

Degradation  of  heat  energy,  17. 

D'Eichthal,  76. 

Deism,  153. 

Delepierre,  Octave,  169-189. 

Delorme,  Marion,  187. 

Demes  of  Attika,  304. 

Demiurgus,  118. 

Denner,  288. 

Descartes  on  thought  and  matter,  40. 


INDEX. 


343 


Desire  no  adequate  basis  for  belief,  54. 

De  Wette,  74. 

"  Digging  "  and  culture,  331. 

Diogenes  and  bis  tub,  300. 

Diseases,  ancient  and  modern,  334. 

Dissipation  of  energy,  12,  17,  18. 

Docetism,  121,  124. 

Dominicans,  214. 

Dominer  on  vocal  music,  278. 

"  Dragons  of  the  prime,"  59. 

Drama  at  Athens,  311. 

Draper,  J.  W.,  on  religion  and  sci- 

.    ence,  138-146. 

Dysteleology,  55. 

E. 

Earth  formerly  a  fluid  mass,  7. 

Ebionites,  90,  116,  127. 

"  Ecce  Homo,"  160. 

Eckerniann  and  Goethe,  309. 

Education  in  Prussia,  325. 

Edward  I.  of  England,  170. 

Egmont,  225. 

Eichhorn,  74. 

Eichthal,  76. 

Eighteenth-century  criticism,  258. 

Elasticity  of  ether,  20. 

Elephants,  damage  wrought  by  them 
in  Beerbhoom,  199. 

Elijah,  his  expected  return  from  the 
heavens,  91,  105. 

Elizabeth  of  England,  170,  219. 

Emanation,  Gnostic  theory  of,  118. 

End  of  the  world  looked  for  by  early 
Christians,  109. 

Energy,  dissipation  of,  12. 

England  and  Spain,  diiference  between 
their  political  careers,  23. 

English  language,  its  remarkable  com- 
position, 245. 

Enjoyment  of  life,  332. 

Enoch,  105  ;  apocryphal  book  attrib- 
uted to  him,  106. 

Enthusiasm  of  humanity,  160. 

Ephesians,  epistle  to,  120. 

Essenes,  85,  90. 

Ether  exerts  friction  upon  the  planets, 
11  ;  question  as  to  whether  it  is  in- 
finite in  extent,  18 ;  description  of 


it,  20-22;  primitive  form  of  matter, 
24  ;  absorption  of  light  rays,  accord- 
ing to  Struve,  26 ;  groundless  as- 
sumption as  to  its  organization,  34  ; 
not  a  "spiritual "  substance,  37. 

Ether-folk,  62." 

Evidence,  under  what  conditions  its 
absence  is  fatal  to  a  hypothesis, 
48-50. 

Experience  determines  our  capacities 
of  conception,  47  ;  not  infinite,  48. 

Extinction  of  species,  5. 

F. 

Faces,  ancient  and  modern,  334. 

Fairy-tales,  2. 

Faith,  Paul's  conception  of,  108 ;  Les- 
sing's  conception  of,  160. 

Fakeers,  200. 

Famines  in  Bengal,  190-210. 

Farnese,  Alexander,  205,  225. 

Ferdinand  of  Aragon,  222. 

Figuier,  Louis,  59-65. 

Fontanes,  Ernest,  155. 

Force,  persistence  of,  5. 

Fortnightly  Review,  17,  24. 

Fourth  gospel,  72,  78,  124  ff. 

Francis  I.  of  France,  222. 

Franciscans,  214. 

Frederick  II. ,  Roman  Emperor,  214. 

Freedom  of  opinion  at  Athens,  317. 

Freeman,  E.  A.,  71,  87. 

French  Biblical  criticism  "annexed" 
in  1871  by  Germany,  77. 

French  poetry,  why  we  are  inclined  to 
underrate  it,  244  ff. 

French  writers  very  productive,  309 ; 
their  literary  excellence,  312. 

Frictionless  fluid,  23. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  170,  223. 

Future  life,  physical  theory  of,  31  ff ; 
has  always  been  depicted  with  mate- 
rialistic symbols,  45  ;  recognition  of 
friends  in,  46. 

G. 

Galilee  less  rigidly  Jewish  than  Judaea, 

85. 
Gamaliel,  teacher  of  Paul,  98. 


344 


INDEX. 


Gehenna,  113. 

Genealogies  of  Jesus  in  first  and  third 
gospels,  116. 

Genius,  critical  and  artistic,  165  - 167. 

Geology  and  Scripture,  126. 

German  and  English  languages,  245. 

Germany  and  Italy,  why  so  slow  in 
consolidating  into  nations,  233. 

Germany  has  monopolized  the  science 
of  Biblical  criticism,  76. 

Ghost,  37. 

Gnosis,  118. 

Gnosticism,  118  ff. 

God  manifested  in  uniformity  of  action 
throughout  nature,  5 ;  a  universal 
cause  of  conscious  states,  51. 

Goethe,  J.  W.,  155, 167, 289, 309, 331, 
337. 

Goetze,  Melchior,  149-157. 

Gospel  of  the  Hebrews,  116. 

Gospels  show  traces  of  dogmatic  pur- 
pose, 71. 

Gravitation  as  a  differential  result  of 
pressure,  26. 

Greek  life  and  art,  294  ff. 

Greek  literary  style,  its  unapproach- 
able perfection,  312. 

Greg,  W.  R.,  on  the  "gospel  of  lei- 
sure," 302  ff,  336. 

Guessing,  how  limited  by  growing  ex- 
perience, 4. 

Gymnastic  habits  of  the  Greeks,  297. 

H. 

Hades,  104. 

Handel,  G.  F.,  269,  270,  330. 

Hanson,  Sir  R.,  author  of  "  The  Jesus 
of  History,"  81. 

Hardness  not  a  necessary  attribute  of 
atoms,  25. 

Harvard  and  Oxford  crews,  334. 

Heat  the  "  communist "  of  the  uni- 
verse, 17  ;  cannot  travel  through 
emptiness,  18. 

Hebrews,  gospel  of,  116 ;  epistle  to, 
120. 

Hellenist  disciples  at  Jerusalem,  98. 

Helmholtz,  H.  L.  F.,  his  theory  of 
vortex-motion  in  a  frictionless  fluid, 
23  ;  on  the  source  of  solar  heat,  63. 


Henry  IV.  of  France,  219,  235. 

Henry  VIII.  of  England,  170,  215. 

Hephaistos,  298. 

Hermai,  mutilation  of,  316. 

Hernias,  119. 

Herod's  relations  with  Jesus,  91. 

Herodotos  at  the  Olympic  games,  31 2. 

Herschel,  Sir  J.,  on  the  elasticity  of 

ether,  20. 
Hunt,  Leigh,  his  appreciation  of  Dante, 

249,  259. 

Hunter,  W.  W.,  190  ff. 
Hurry,  psychological  consequences  of, 

331. 

Huyghens,  24,  29. 
Hypothesis,  uses  of,  3. 

I. 

Idealism,  50. 

Imagination,   abstract    and    concrete, 

165-167. 
Imitation  as  a  characteristic  of  art, 

285  ff. 

Immortality,  physical  theory  of,  31  ff. 
Inconceivability,  when  inapplicable  to 

the  test  of  truth,  48. 
Independent  worlds    pervading    each 

other,  21. 

Individuality  withering,  335. 
Indivisibility  of  atoms,  25. 
Instrumental  and  vocal  music,  276  ff. 
Interstellar  ether,  question  as  to  its 

extent,  18. 
Irenasus,  72. 

Isabella  the  Catholic,  222,  227. 
Isolation  of  Asiatic  communities,  201. 
Italy  and  Germany,  why  so  slow  in 

consolidating  into  nations,  233. 

J. 

Jacqueline  of  Holland,  214. 

James,  brother  of  Jesus,  an  enemy  of 
Paul,  84. 

Jeanne  d'Arc,  174-186. 

Jerusalem,  destruction  of,  83. 

Jesuits,  217. 

Jesus,  meagreness  of  our  information 
about  him,  66  -  72  ;  left  no  writings 
of  his  own,  68  ;  his  birth  and  family- 


INDEX. 


345 


relations,  84  ;  connection  with  John 
the  Baptist,  85  ;  not  puritanical,  i 
his  conception  of  Deity,  88  ;  his  al- 
leged hostility  to  the  rich,  88  -  90  ; 
his  preaching  not  well  received  at 
Nazareth,  90  ;  retires  to  Syro-Phce- 
iiicia,  91 ;  grounds  of  his  belief  in 
his  Messiahship,  91  -  93  ;  his  alleged 
prediction  of  his  death,  93  ;  his  en- 
try into  Jerusalem,  94 ;  made  no 
pretence  to  miraculous  powers,  95  ; 
fatal  accusation  of  treason  brought 
against  him  by  the  priests,  96 ; 
question  as  to  how  far  he  antici- 
pated the  liberalism  of  Paul,  96- 
100  ;  legend  of  his  resurrection  from 
the  grave,  102  - 104  ;  legend  of  his 
ascension  into  the  sky,  107  ;  not  re- 
garded as  superhuman  by  Paid,  114 ; 
reception  of  pneuma  at  his  baptism, 
115  ;  myth  of  his  "  immaculate  con- 
ception," 116;  his  pedigree  iu  first 
and  third  gospels,  116  ;  his  pre- 
existence  assumed  in  the  Clementine 
Homilies,  119  ;  Gnostic  doctrine  of 
emanations  applied  to  him  iu  "Colos- 
sians,"  "  Philippians,"  and  "Ephe- 
sians,"  120;  identified  with  the  Phi- 
Ionian  Logos  by  Justin  Martyr,  123  ; 
described  as  son  of  God  in  fourth 
gospel,  124  ;  unsuccessful  attempt 
of  Sabellius,  in  third  century,  to 
identify  him  with  God,  127  ;  finally 
identified  with  God  toward  the  end 
of  fourth  century,  127,  128. 

Jevons,  W.  S.,  20,  33,  37. 

Jewish  conception  of  the  universe,  104. 

John  of  Luxembourg,  180. 

John  the  Apostle,  the  gospel  attrib- 
uted to  him,  72,  78, 124  ff ;  narrow- 
ness of  his  views,  79. 

John  the  Baptist,  date  of  his  ministry, 
84 ;  his  relations  with  Jesus,  85 ; 
beheaded  by  Herod,  87. 

John  the  Grammarian,  172. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  171. 

Joinery,  tanning,  and  culture,  329. 

Joseph,  father  of  Jesus,  84. 

Judas,  or  Jude,  brother  of  Jesus,  84  ; 
epistle  attributed  to  him,  69. 


Jupiter's  short  day,  8,  61 ;  his  great 

heat,  9,  61. 
Justiu  Martyr,  78,  123. 

K. 

Kepler's  laws,  4. 
Kingdom  of  heaven,  86. 
Kleanthes,  110. 
Koran,  68. 

L. 

Law  and  God,  5. 

Leisure  aud  hurry,  302  ff. 

Leopardi  on  early  translators  of  the 
classics,  265. 

Le  Sage's  theory  of  gravitation,  26. 

Lessing,  G.  E.,  a  forerunner  of  the 
Tubingen  School,  73 ;  on  rewards 
and  punishments  after  death,  113, 
159 ;  publishes  the  Wolfenbiittel 
Fragments,  148  ;  controversy  with 
Goetze,  150  ff;  conversation  with 
Jacobi,  155 ;  his  view  of  religious 
development,  157  ;  of  otherworhlli- 
ness,  159 ;  his  conception  of  faith, 
160  ;  character  of  his  genius,  165  ff. 

Libraries,  fanatical  destruction  of,  172. 

Life  by  and  by  to  disappear  from  solar 
system,  10  ;  what  is  to  become  of  it, 
30. 

Light,  wave-theory  of,  4,  21 ;  cannot 
travel  through  emptiness,  18. 

Liszt,  F.,  277,  330. 

Llorente  on  calumniating  the  Inquisi- 
tion, 222. 

Logos,  71,  122. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  his  version  of 
Dante,  237  ff. 

Lucretian  theory  of  the  hardness  of 
atoms,  25. 

Luke,  Pauline  purpose  of  the  gospel 
attributed  to  him,  75,  97 ;  date  of 
its  composition,  82. 

Luther  and  Charles  V.,  223. 

Lysias,  312. 

Lysistrata  of  Aristophanes,  297. 

Lyttelton  on  the  conversion  of  Paul, 
130. 


346 


INDEX. 


M. 

Mackay,  R.  W.,  on  the  Tubingen 
School,  75  ;  on  the  religion  of  the 
Greeks  and  Hebrews,  118. 

Magellan's  voyage,  213. 

Mannerism  in  art,  286. 

Marcion,  78,  121. 

Mark,  his  "  Memorabilia,"  72  ;  second- 
hand character  of  the  gospel  attrib- 
uted to  him,  75  ;  date  of  its  compo- 
sition, 82  ;  omits  the  myth  of  the 
miraculous  conception  of  Jesus,  121. 

Marriage  to  be  abolished  in  the  Mes- 
sianic kingdom,  90. 

Mars,  the  planet,  his  red  colour,  61. 

Mary  of  Magdala,  108. 

Mary  I.  of  England,  223. 

Mary  Stuart,  170. 

Material  substance,  53. 

Materialism,  31,  36,  52. 

Matter,  our  conception  of  it  enlarged 
by  the  discovery  of  ether,  22  ;  ques- 
tion as  to  its  eternal  duration,  27  ; 
how  it  registers  events,  33 ;  abso- 
lutely distinct  from  mind,  41  ;  is 
nothing  but  a  group  of  qualities, 
51 ;  Cartesian  and  Gnostic  puzzle  as 
to  its  relations  with  spirit,  118. 

Matthew,  his  "  Logia,"  72,  83 ;  pri- 
ority of  the  gospel  attributed  to 
him,  75,  83  ;  date  of  its  composi- 
tion, 82  ;  its  anti-Pauline  bias,  97. 

Maurice  of  Saxony,  216. 

Mayer,  J.  R.,  on  the  origin  of  solar 
heat,  64. 

Memory  as  kept  up  in  the  universe,  32. 

Mendelssohn's  "  St.  Paul,"  271 ;  his 
mastery  of  counterpoint,  330. 

Mercury,  the  planet,  60. 

Messiah,  Pharisaic  theory  of,  86,  106, 

158  ;  assumption   of  the  character 
by  Jesus,   91  -  93  ;   how  conceived 
by  Paul,  114. 

Michael  Angelo,  166,  286. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  on  belief  in  a  future  life, 
54 ;  on  rewards   and   punishments, 

159  ;  on  English  and  French  incen- 
tives to  virtue,  283  ;  his  breadth  of 
culture,  309  ;  on  ancient  and  mod- 


ern literature,  329  ;  on  the  study  of 

antiquity,  337. 
Milleuarism  of  primitive  church,  108, 

112. 

Miller,  Hugh,  126. 
Millionnaires  and  berserkirs,  323. 
Mind  as  product  of  matter,  36  ;  abso- 
lutely   distinct    from    matter,    41 ; 

always  associated  with  matter  in  our 

experience,  44. 
Miracles,  129  ff. 
Miraculous  conception  of  Jesus,  116  ; 

omitted  in  second  gospel,  121. 
Mohammed,  68,  86,  133,  258. 
Moleschott,  36. 
Moon  formerly  a  part  of  the  earth's 

equatorial  zone,  7  ;  now  a  cold  body, 

9. 
Moons  more  abundant  among  the  outer 

planets,  8. 

Moors  in  Spain,  230  ff. 
Mozart's  precocity,  64  ;  cadence  in  his 

Twelfth  Mass,  273. 
Muhamad  Efendi,  159. 
Muhamad  Reza  Khan,  193. 
Music,  old  and  new,  329  ;  expresses  not 

ideas  but  moods,  277. 
Mussulman  civilization,  139  ff. 
My  tilenaians,  proposal  for  the  massacre 

of,  314. 

N. 

Nathan  the  Wise,  162  ff. 

Nature,  the  manifestation  of  an  infinite 

God,  5. 
Nazareth,  probably  the  birthplace  of 

Jesus,  84  ;  did  not  listen  favourably 

to  his  preaching,  90. 
Nebulag  found  in  different  stages  of 

development,  15. 
Nebular  hypothesis,  7-19,  28. 
Negative-image  hypothesis,  33  ff. 
Netherlands   the    true   centre   of    the 

struggle  of  the  Reformation,  218  ; 

their  position  in  the  Middle  Ages, 

233. 
Newman,  F.  W.,  on  the  proceedings  of 

Jesus  at  Jerusalem,  94. 
Nicolas,  Michel,  76. 


INDEX. 


347 


Nikaia,  Council  of,  127. 

Nikias  and  the  eclipse  of  the  moon, 

316. 
Ninth  Bridgewater  Treatise,  33,  55. 

o. 

Olympic  games,  298. 

Omar,  conversion  of,  132 ;  legend  of 

his  destruction  of  the  Alexandrian 

library,  171  ff. 
Oratory  at  Athens,  314. 
Origen,  116,  127. 
Orissa,  its  famine  in  1866,  209. 
Orosius,  174. 
Othenvorldliness,  158. 
"  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,"  7, 

35,  42,  47,  51,  260. 
Oxford  and  Harvard  crews,  334. 

P. 

Paine,  J.  K.,his  oratorio  "St.  Peter," 
266  ff ;  his  C-minor  symphony,  276. 

Painting,  new  and  old,  330. 

Pan  and  Pheidippides,  316. 

Papias,  71,  78,  83. 

Parker,  Theodore,  155. 

Parkman,  Francis,  312. 

Parliamentary  tact,  314. 

Parma,  Alexander  Farnese,  Duke  of, 
205,  225. 

Parrhasios,  288. 

Parsons,  T.  W.,  his  version  of  Dante, 
242  ff. 

Pascal,  312. 

Paul  the  Apostle,  68  ;  his  four  genu- 
ine epistles,  69 ;  spurious  epistles, 
75  ;  attacked  in  the  Apocalypse  and 
in  the  first  gospel,  79,  83,  97  ;  how 
far  anticipated  by  Jesus,  96-100; 
his  persecution  of  the  Christians, 
98  ;  his  doctrine  of  the  resurrection, 
108  ;  his  theory  of  salvation  through 
the  "  second  Adam,"  111 ;  did  not 
regard  Jesus  as  superhuman,  114; 
his  conversion,  130  ff. 

Paulo-Petrine  controversy,  83. 

Paulus,  74,  154. 

Pentateuch  says  nothing  about  future 
state  of  retribution,  158. 


Perez,  Antonio,  225. 

Persecution  rare  at  Athens,  317.   ' 

Persistence  of  force,  5. 

Pharisees,  84 ;    attacked  by  Jesus  in 

Jerusalem,  95. 
Pheidippides  and  Pan,  316. 
Philip  II.  of  Spain,  221  ff. 
Philip  IV.  of  France,  214. 
Philip  the  Good  of  Burgundy,   180, 

214. 

Philippians,  epistle  to,  120. 
Philo,  122. 

Photography  and  painting,  287. 
Phrygian  cadence,  273. 
Pilate,  84. 
Planets,  their  relative  sizes,  8 ;  their 

ultimate  fate,  10. 
Platonic  dialogues,  311 ;  ideas,  122  ; 

notion  of  grossness  of  matter,  37. 
Pleroma,  or  "fulness  of  God,"  119. 
Pneuma  as  a  constituent  of  Jesus,  115. 
Political  life  at  Athens,  313. 
Polycarp,  78. 

Pope,  A.,  his  version  of  Homer,  261. 
Positivist  ideal  of  society  erroneous, 

335. 

Praetorius,  270. 
Pre-existence  of  Jesus,  118. 
Preferences  in  philosophy,  54. 
Prevost-Paradol,  280,  325. 
Priestley,  Joseph,  36. 
Primordial  medium,  37. 
Prometheus,  117. 
Protestant  Reformation,  214. 
Psychical  world,  40. 
Puritanism  and  art,  283. 

Q. 

Quartodeciman  controversy,  72, 78, 101. 
R. 

Rain,  Jewish  theory  of,  105. 
Realism  of  the  Platonists,  122. 
Recognition  of  friends  in  a  future  life, 

46. 

Reimarus,  H.  S.,  148  ff. 
Religion  and  science,  no  real  conflict 

between  them,  3,  142  ff,  160. 


348 


INDEX. 


Renan,  E.,  his  "Life  of  Jesus,"  77  ; 
his  treatment  of  the  fourth  gospel, 
80 ;  on  the  conversion  of  Paul,  129 
ff;  on  proselytism  in  the  future, 
215. 

Republicanism  practically  inaugurated 
in  1609  by  the  Dutch,  220. 

Resurrection  of  Christ,  102-114. 

Retribution,  future  state  of,  106,  113, 
158. 

Retrograde  rotation  of  extreme  outer 
planets,  8. 

Reuss,  E.,  76. 

Reville,  A.,  76,  119,  124,  155. 

Richard  III.  of  England,  170. 

Ridley  and  Latimer,  225. 

Roger  of  Pontigny,  71 . 

Rogers,  Henry,  on  Renan's  "  Les 
Apotres,"  129  ff. 

Rossetti's  translation  of  Dante,  264. 

Rotation  cannot  be  acquired  or  lost  by 
any  system  of  particles  save  by  ac- 
tion from  without,  8. 

Rutherford  on  religious  toleration,  148. 

s. 

Sabellius,  127. 

Sadducees,  104. 

Sainte-Beuve,  C.  A.,  261,  309 ;  his  re- 
mark about  history,  169. 

Sakyamuni  and  Jesus,  67,  86. 

Salvador  on  resurrection  of  Jesus,  103. 

Sapphira,  89. 

Satan  as  "  prince  of  the  powers  of  the 
air,"  105,  119. 

Saturn's  moons  and  rings,  8  ;  his  great 
heat,  9,  61. 

Scherer,  A,  76. 

Schleiermacher,  74. 

Schubert,  330. 

Schumann  and  the  secular  cantata,  279. 

Schwegler,  A.,  76. 

Science  and  common-sense,  60. 

Sebastian  of  Portugal,  186. 

Second  advent,  112. 

Semler,  74,  150. 

Sermon  on  the  Mount,  86. 

Sex  to  be  abolished  in  the  Messianic 
kingdom,  90. 


Shakespeare,  W.,  166. 

Sheol,  45,  104,  113. 

Sidereal  evolution,  15. 

Simon,  brother  of  Jesus,  84. 

Sirius,  15. 

Slavery  at  Athens,  295,  304,  322. 

"  Sleepers,  wake  ! "  270. 

Smarrita  and  lost,  239. 

Smoker's  rings,  23. 

Society  and  individuals,  335. 

Sokrates,  310,  318,  329. 

Solar  heat,  7  ff. 

Solar  spots,  their  periodicity,  10. 

"  Sophia,"  119,  123. 

Spain,  causes  of  its  decline,  229  ff. 

Spartan  ideal  of  life,  296. 

Special  creation,  5. 

Species,  extinction  of,  5. 

Speculation  in  breadstuffs,  204  ff. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  155. 

Spheroidal  shape  of  nebulae  due  to  ro- 
tation, 7. 

Spinoza,  52  ;  founder  of  modern  Bibli- 
cal criticism,  73,  154. 

Spirit-rapping,  43. 

Spiritual  body,  36. 

Spiritual  substance,  53. 

Stars  lie  mostly  in  one  plane,  14  ;  re- 
semble sun  and  planets  in  chemical 
composition,  14. 

Statuary  in  Greece,  300. 

Stephen,  98. 

Stewart,  Balfour,  6. 

Stoicism,  159. 

Strauss,  D.  F.,  70,  73,  76. 

Strepsiades,  322. 

Struve's  theory  of  absorption  of  lumi- 
nous rays  by  ether,  26. 

Style,  262,  312. 

Success,  American  idea  of,  323. 

Sympathy  greatly  developed  under 
Roman  Empire,  316. 

Synoptic  gospels,  when  written,  67, 81. 

T. 

Tacitus,  170. 

Taine,  H.  A.,  280  ff. 

Tait,  P.  G.,  6. 

Tanning,  joinery,  and  culture,  329. 


INDEX. 


349 


Tayler,  J.  J.,  on  the  fourth  gospel,  78. 

Teleologic  solution  of  the  problem  of 
existence  universally  craved,  55. 

Temperature  of  solar  system,  9. 

Tennyson,  A.,  160;  his  "In  Memo- 
riam,"  239. 

Tertullian,  72,  127. 

Theophilus,  destroyer  of  the  Alexan- 
drian library,  173. 

Thessalonians,  epistles  to,  75,  112. 

Thomson,  Sir  W.,  on  the  dissipation 
of  energy,  16  ;  his  theory  of  vortex- 
atoms,  22  ;  on  the  size  of  atoms,  39. 

Thought  and  matter  incommensurable, 
40. 

Three  Rings,  story  of,  162. 

Thugs,  200. 

Tiberius,  170. 

Tides,  their  effect  upon  planetary  and 
solar  rotation,  10. 

Toleration,  148,  159. 

Torquemada,  172. 

Translating  poetry,  two  methods  of, 
241  ff. 

Transmigration  of  souls,  64. 

Trinity,  doctrine  of,  125-128. 

Tubingen  School,  75,  154. 

Turkish  cadi's  letter  to  Mr.  Layard, 
302. 

Tyndall,  J.,  13,  42. 

u. 

Undulatory  theory,  4,  18,  21,  29. 

Uniformity  of  nature,  the  assumption 
involves  an  act  of  faith,  6. 

United  States  sparsely  peopled,  320. 

Universals,  122. 

Universe,  in  what  sense  infinite,  19. 

Universities,  large  ones  most  favoura- 
ble for  culture,  309. 

"  Unseen  Universe,"  its  supposed  au- 
thors, 6  ;  illegitimate  use  of  the 
phrase,  39. 

Unthinkable  propositions,  47. 


V. 


Valentinus,  78,  121. 

Venus,  the  planet,  60. 

Vignier's  discovery  of  papers  relating 

to  Jeanne  d'Arc,  174. 
Vishnu,  117. 
Visigoths  in  Spain,  229. 
Vocal  and  instrumental  music,  276  ff. 
Voltaire,  152,  159,  312  ;  his  failure  to 

appreciate  Dante,  259. 
Vortex-atoms,  theory  of,  23-28,  38. 
Vortex-motion  defined,  22. 

w. 

Wallace,  William,  170. 

War,  gradual  diminution  of,  321. 

War  and  persecution,  224. 

Waste  of  energy  in  development  of 

solar  system,  9,  12,  32. 
Westphalia,  peace  of,  212. 
William  the  Silent,  221. 
"  Wisdom  "  of  Book  of  Proverbs,  119. 
Wives  in  Athens,  306. 
Worcester,  Marquis  of,  187. 
World  of  ether  alleged  as  complement 

of  world  of  matter,  33. 
Worlds  mutually  interpenetrating,  21. 

X. 

Xenophon's  Anabasis,  315. 
Ximenes,  Cardinal,  172. 

Y. 

Young,  Thomas,  his  suggestion  of  mu- 
tually-pervading worlds,  21. 

z. 

Zeller,  E.,  on  the  "Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles," 76. 
Zeuxis,  288. 


THE  END. 


THE  WRITINGS  OF 
JOHN  FISKE 

> 

THE  DISCOVERY  OF  AMERICA 

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